Plastic Free Plux

🙋‍♀️ 🙋‍♂️ Who are we

We are Plastic Free Plux, a grassroots initiative that strives to eliminate single-use plastics at Place du Luxembourg in Brussels. This iconic square in front of the European Parliament is the place to be for many of the EU officials and bureaucrats for an after-work drink. Unfortunately, all the beverages served outdoors come in single-use plastic cups. The result? 75+ trash bags full of plastic waste on Friday morning after each night of unsustainable fun.

🥛 Our approach

The Plastic Free Plux movement has therefore campaigned to encourage people to bring their own, reusable alternatives to the square. Followed by a deployment of our own reusable cups via a deposit-and-return scheme. About 100 reusable goblets are rented out every Thursday night, saving about 450 single-use cups each time.

Currently we are testing and improving a stakeholder model with the aim of making Place du Luxembourg completely single-use plastic free. This model will be replicable throughout the rest of the city and beyond. To allow citizens around the world to make their city Plastic Free, we will open source this model in our Plastic Free Blueprint, which will be available to other bars.

🌎 Our goal

Plastic Free Plux’s short term-goal is to eliminate single-use cups on Place du Luxembourg completely by the end of 2019 and publish our Plastic Free Blueprint. From 2020 onwards, we will target new neighbourhoods of Brussels, joined by citizens and bars who follow our example. We dream of a single-use plastic free Brussels where going out does not result in polluting the Earth.