On display until this coming Tuesday, ‘Saturday’s Cups’ has been designed by artist Kate Gislason, founder and director of Without Waste, in collaboration with Splash Cafe and the Events Centre.
It’s been created entirely from single-use coffee cups collected over recent months, and represents the number of cups Splash Cafe, at the Events Centre, would have typically used on a Saturday, prior to becoming single-use-cup free.
Despite the availability of compostable options, thousands of single-use cups continue to be consumed and discarded in Queenstown each day, which contributes to unnecessary waste and undermines community-wide efforts to build a low-impact, environmentally-conscious visitor experience.
Alongside the installation, a public competition’s running where visitors can guess how many cups were used to build it — the person with the closest guess will win a three-month pool membership at the Events Centre.
Gislason’s known for transforming data and waste volumes into compelling visual storytelling that inspires change.
"Helping people understand the long-term consequences of single-use culture, and how their everyday choices can either contribute to pollution or support a more sustainable future, is what motivates me to push for real, measurable change," she says.
Single Use Cup (SUC) free Whakatipu ops manager, Ella Peacock, says the installation’s intended to make the unseen impossible to ignore.
"‘Saturday’s Cups’ makes the invisible visible.
"When you stand in front of hundreds of discarded cups, just one day’s worth from a single cafe, it is a powerful reminder of the difference small individual choices can make.
"Queenstown cares deeply for its environment, and this installation encourages all of us to do the same."
