High street store and cruelty-free beauty advocate Lush is opening a vegan coffee shop in London in an attempt to raise awareness of the issues of plastic waste.

The coffee shop, which will open at the front of Lush’s store on Beak Street, is called Carry The Cup. Working together with Change Please (a coffee company staffed by homeless members of the London community), the company will offer free coffee and reusable cups to all of the shop’s customers.

Lush Soho Studio Manager Michael O’Brien told Plant Based News: ‘Beyond cosmetics, there are habits we can break and simple changes we can make to reduce or remove single-use plastic from our lives. By transforming our front exhibition space into a friendly coffee shop, we want to invite London locals and visitors inside for a free cup of coffee (or tea) and an informative discussion on how to ditch the single-use coffee cup, and learn to #carrythecup. The only catch to the free coffee? You have to bring your own cup (don’t worry, there will be exclusive reusable cups to buy if you don’t have one already).’

The shop walls will be covered with educational facts and encouragements about waste reduction, explaining how customers can make an impact by making small changes in their lives.

Also speaking to Plant Based News, Change Please Founder Cemal Ezal said: ‘We are so proud to be working with Lush to help promote the use of re-usable cups. Although the cups used by Change Please coffee are 100% compostable and biodegradable in 12 weeks, this does not go far enough to address the problem of single-use disposables. We really feel there should be more public awareness of the ease of using a re-usable cup and this promotion by Lush is a bold statement of the need to make a sustainable difference, now!’

The pop-up will open from August 14 for four weeks.