It was eight in the morning at the bus station in Munich when Florian Pachaly and Fabian Eckert met for the first time.

Best coffee time.

The two young men had an idea in their heads that went with it.

They wanted to set up a Germany-wide reusable system for coffee cups.

To avoid garbage.

Sarah Huemer

Editor in the "Value" department of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sunday newspaper.

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They had figured that out independently.

It was by chance that they met each other.

Or fate.

They both told the same person about their vision, a Munich environmental activist.

She then gave them the contact details of each other so that the two men could exchange information.

So it happened that Florian Pachaly and Fabian Eckert drank a coffee together on that day in July 2016.

And after a short time they agreed not to tackle the matter individually, but in pairs.

Obligation to use a reusable cup

Since then, the two have built up the most successful reusable system for coffee mugs and bowls in Germany.

Now her company Recup is getting a lot more traffic.

Because from the beginning of January there will be a new reusable obligation in this country.

The legislator stipulates that cafés and restaurants must also offer their take-away food in reusable packaging.

Apart from the deposit, the price for this must not be higher than that for food in disposable packaging.

There are only exceptions for small restaurants such as takeaways.

The two founders have received many calls and emails since this innovation was announced just over a year ago.

In addition to many small restaurants, their customers now also include large chains such as Burger King, the gas station operator Shell and the furniture retailer Ikea.

In addition to the network of partner companies that they have built up over the past few years, a few more are likely to be added in the near future.

Around 16,000 restaurants now use Recup cups.

The founders started in Rosenheim, the home of Florian Pachaly;

Fabian Eckert comes from Heidelberg.

Together they went from café to café in Rosenheim and convinced the innkeepers to use their reusable cups.

Every evening they cycled to the factories, collected the cups, washed them and brought them back.

They charged a fee for this.

A euro deposit

After a few months, they realized: this business is not worth it in the long run and on a large scale.

"We sat in front of our Excel spreadsheet, calculated everything and then almost wanted to give up," says Fabian Eckert.

His co-founder adds: “Every restaurant has a dishwasher anyway.

Nobody really needed our model.”

But the two didn't give up that easily.

They came up with a new system: they lend cafés and restaurants their plastic cups, which bear the Recup logo.

These in turn serve the coffee to their customers.

The pubs pay Recup a rental fee of one euro per cup.

Every customer then pays exactly the same deposit for the crockery on loan.

If he brings his mug back, he gets a refund.

The cafés and restaurants wash the cups themselves. If fewer cups are needed than planned or one is damaged, something goes back to Recup and the deposit is refunded.