In 2018, Jack Johnson's concert used reusable cups more than 100 times each. That single event kept over 22,000 disposable cups out of the waste stream

When thousands of people gather for a concert, something as ordinary as a drink cup becomes a waste problem. Buy a drink, finish it, throw away the cup. Repeat that across a stadium, and a few hours of entertainment can leave a considerable cleanup behind.

At a 2018 concert featuring Jack Johnson and the Eagles at Hawaii’s Aloha Stadium, fans were offered a different routine: keep the cup, refill it or return it for another event.

According to an account on Johnson’s official website, the effort helped prevent more than 22,000 single-use plastic cups from entering the waste stream that evening.


It was a substantial result for a change that asked relatively little of the audience.

A free cup with a future

The idea was straightforward. Fans received a free Hawai‘i r.Cup, which they could take home or return for reuse at future events. Across the venue, Plastic Free Hawai‘i water-refill stations offered free drinking water.

Together, those choices gave concertgoers a practical reason to hold on to their cups. Once a drink was finished, the container still had a job to do.

The source account says the cups could be reused more than 100 times. That distinction matters: they were capable of repeated use. The cups were not used 100 times each during the concert. Nor does the account establish how many times those particular cups were subsequently reused.

The reported achievement was more immediate: over 22,000 disposable plastic cups avoided at a single show.

The rain came. The music carried on

There was plenty happening onstage, too.

Local musicians Paula Fuga, Kawika Kahiapo and John Cruz joined Johnson for several songs, including Cruz’s “Island Style.” Rain fell, but the audience continued enjoying the music, according to the Jack Johnson Music website.


The reusable-cup pilot fitted around that evening of performances. Fans could collect their cups, get water and return to the show.

Volunteers from the Kōkua Hawai‘i Foundation’s Plastic Free Hawai‘i program helped make the effort possible. Their contribution is a reminder that even a simple change at stadium scale takes people to help put it into practice.

What one concert can—and cannot—tell us

For US stadiums and festivals, the appeal is easy to understand. Drinks are served in large numbers, often within a few hours. Changing the container can therefore affect thousands of individual purchases and refills.

But handing out a durable cup is only the beginning. Its longer-term usefulness depends on what happens afterward: whether a fan uses it at home or returns it so it can serve another audience.

The Aloha Stadium account's 22,000-cup figure is a reported waste-prevention result, rather than a measure of emissions saved.

Still, the evening offers a concrete example of something venues can reconsider.

At Johnson’s concert, fans had somewhere to refill it—and the option to give it another night out.

In the years after 2018, reusable cups found their way into more US concert crowds.

California’s Cali Vibes festival used r.Cups in 2023, and San Francisco’s Warfield Theatre introduced a system to collect and wash cups for reuse across its shows. At U2’s Sphere residency in Las Vegas, fans dropped their cups into designated bins before heading home. The cups then went to a local washing facility to be sanitized and returned to the venue.

It was a small change to the concertgoing routine that gave each cup a chance to serve another crowd.