Air New Zealand serves lots of coffee each year, but a new trial could reduce the waste produced in terms of coffee cups.

Air New Zealand serves more than 8 million cups of coffee each year. The airline’s current cups are compostable, but the carrier has higher aspirations to remove the cups from landfills altogether.

“We’ve been working in partnership with innovative New Zealand company ‘twiice’ to explore the future of edible coffee cups, which are vanilla flavoured and leakproof. The cups have been a big hit with the customers who have used these and we’ve also been using the cups as dessert bowls,” said Niki Chave, senior manager, customer experience, Air New Zealand.

Officials from the company behind twiice say the edible cups and bowls will go a long way to changing what people see as possible in the world of sustainable packaging.

Air New Zealand’s changes to compostable cups saved around 15 million cups from the landfill each year. The changes include the airline’s insistence that customers bring their own coffee cups, if possible.