Virgin Trains have been criticised this month over a health and safety policy which insists hot drinks bought on its trains must be put in a paper bag before passengers can take them back to their seats. The train company prides itself on reducing its impact on the environment and in 2006 pledged to spend $3 billion on tackling global morning. Nevertheless Virgin Trains has confirmed all hot food and drink purchased are placed in bags for "customer safety".
As a result environmentalists have accused Virgin Trains of adding to the "mountains of waste" already created in the UK each year. Allison Ogden-Newton, Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy commented that "giving away a paper bag with every hot drink adds insult to injury - a single-use cup in a single-use bag! Hopeless". She added "Virgin Trains needs to look at their sustainability strategy urgently to reduce waste for all our sakes, but especially for future generations".
Emma Priestland, plastics campaigner from Friends of the Earth said it is "always best" to avoid unnecessary single-use packaging, regardless whether it is paper or plastic. She asked why Virgin Trains were not encouraging customers to use a reusable coffee cup to avoid the risk of spilling hot drinks.
Customers have taken to social media to complain about the policy as far back as 2011, questioning the logic of paper bags to prevent spilling and branding it wasteful.
Virgin Trains have defended the policy, stating "safety is always our top priority" and that it is a policy adopted by many other train operators. They also added that they have introduced a 20p discount incentive for customers who bring a reusable cup for hot drinks. They have also introduced recycling bins at stations to collect mixed dry recycling. Translink also admitted to giving paper bags when buying hot drinks to "help minimise the impact of hot liquid spilling".
Amelia Womack, deputy leader of the Green Party, stated there must be a bigger, co-ordinated strategy between railway companies and platform coffee shops to "reduce the level of rubbish being churned out and make train journeys less wasteful". She noted "there's a lack of obvious recycling services and until recently most networks wouldn't even accept my reusable cup".
