Nudge Innovations began as a university project in Glasgow, exploring why single use cups continued to dominate despite growing awareness around waste. Our research showed that reuse is failing, not because people do not care, but because the systems around them make it inconvenient to maintain. We saw this problem repeatedly, so we focused on fixing it.
Through research, testing, and early trials, the same patterns kept appearing. Reuse breaks down when it relies on people remembering to carry extra items, finding cleaning solutions that are not available, or changing routines that already work for them.
We learned that awareness alone does not drive lasting reuse. Systems do. When reuse fits into existing routines, it happens more often. When it adds friction, it quickly drops away.
Those learnings shaped our design decisions. We started with cleaning, after seeing that reuse breaks down when cups cannot be cleaned properly between uses. Real world trials showed that cleaning alone was not enough.
People also needed a reliable way to have their cup with them in the first place. That led to a second product, focused on carrying and remembering. Together, our products remove practical barriers to reuse rather than relying on persuasion.
Today, our work is focused on the places where reuse matters most: workplaces, campuses, cafés, and foodservice environments. These are the settings where small design decisions can have an outsized impact on daily behaviour.
We continue to build practical reuse infrastructure that fits into existing systems and routines, so reuse can function as part of everyday life.
Lesley Thomson
Co-Founder & CEO
Scott Whitelaw
Co-Founder & CTO
Daisy Tydeman
Product Design Engineer
Tom Hayes
Product Engineer
Both Duet and NuWash are designed with durability and longevity as priorities. We use recycled stainless steel where possible, minimise packaging, and design key components to be repairable or replaceable to extend product life.
By focusing on products that are used repeatedly and kept in service for longer, waste is reduced over time rather than displaced.
Impact estimates are based on published lifecycle assessments and internal product data. Figures reflect typical use scenarios and will be updated as real world usage data becomes available.
months
NuWash reaches carbon neutrality compared with paper cups after around two months of typical use.
kg CO₂e
A single unit can avoid an estimated 2,856 kg of CO₂e compared with single use cups each year.
uses
After approximately 83 uses, Duet offsets the carbon cost of its production.
kg CO₂e
Each refill of the Duet avoids around 52 g CO₂e compared with a single use cup.
People want to reuse, but it is difficult to keep up in everyday life. Reusable cups are easy to forget, and when people do have them, there is often nowhere clean or hygienic to wash them. Over time, reuse becomes hard to maintain, and people return to single use.
These are not motivation problems. They are practical ones.
