Everything started with the idea of a low-waste city. ‘As nice as a coffee to go is, disposable cups cause more waste than many people think,’ say Mario Spengler and Joachim Just from the Kleve-based company hermsen GmbH, calculating the mountain of disposable waste. ‘7.6 million disposable cups are used every day in Germany. Based on Kleve’s population of around 53,000, that’s approximately 5,000 disposable cups per day.’ Reusable cups are intended to counteract this trend. A city-wide, cross-catering reusable cup system could be one solution. This is how the Klever Becher came about.
This idea led the two to enter last year’s Klever Birne sustainability award, which was organised for the third time in 2025 by the city of Kleve in collaboration with our project. ‘The proposal perfectly captured the spirit of the competition: sharing resources wisely – shaping sustainability together,’ says Christina Martens from our team. Mario Spengler and Joachim Just:
‘A reusable system like this has the greatest ecological impact when the cups are actually used regularly. Manufacturing, transport and cleaning all consume resources and energy, which can only be offset by multiple uses.’
Confident in their idea and motivated by the positive response, the two ideators decided to continue pursuing the implementation of the Klever Becher even without winning the Klever Birne 2025 award. They were supported by the city of Kleve and the Wirtschaft, Tourismus und Marketing GmbH (WTM) of the city of Kleve. The Klever Becher is now available for purchase at the Kleve Tourist Information Office.
It’s more than just a nice advertisement for Kleve
Die Stadt Kleve freut sich gleich mehrfach über die Verwirklichung der Wettbewerbsidee. The city of Kleve is pleased about the realisation of the competition idea in a number of ways. ‘In addition to the advertising effect, the Kleve cup supports the implementation of our sustainability strategy, because it promotes resource conservation and circular economy,’ says Pascale van Koeverden, co-organiser of Klever Birne at the City of Kleve. “We want to actively involve politicians in making Kleve inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable in accordance with UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11. As such, the Klever Becher came at just the right time as a gift from the mayor to the council members,‘ adds Christian Bomblat, Technical Councillor and Chairman of the Core Sustainability Team of the City of Kleve. Verena Rohde from WTM also takes a positive view: ‘We are happy to support a local company here and now hope that the Klever Becher will be widely accepted.‘
The colour of the cup, which was designed by WTM, is called ‘sociable green’. The BPA-free cup was produced in Germany. Now, in addition to hot drink lovers, it needs bakeries, cafés, ice cream parlours and other catering establishments that sell drinks to go and want to offer the Klever cups for refilling. After all, the success of a reusable system depends not least on consistent use by the catering industry and customers. If you are interested, Joachim Just would be delighted to hear from you. The brains behind the Klever Becher also scored points with a further idea at the Klever Birne: ‘Part of our concept for the Klever Birne was a €0.10 discount on the price of drinks, as the outlets save on the cost of disposable cups.’ The idea is still on the table, and participants are now being sought.
This year, we will once again be teaming up with the city of Kleve to invite entries for another round of Klever Birne. The application phase will begin in May. For more information about the competition, visit www.kleverbirne.de.