Samantha Stone and Christie Kamphuis met on a random European dance floor, crushing a sea of plastic waste underfoot as they went from festival to festival.

“I was 18, and she was 19. We were with two guys, they were friends. We got rid of those guys, but we’ve been friends ever since,” Ms Stone laughed.

These days, from a factory in Keysborough in Melbourne’s south, the pair and a handful of employees are making their own more “durable” plastic cups for street parties, music festivals and sporting events.

Their company bettercup has the backing of green advocates, like the CEO of Sustainability Victoria, Matt Genever.

And the business has been awarded a $446,851 grant from them to expand its operations.

But how does replacing one bit of plastic with another help?

Cups used across multiple events

While glass and metal re-usable alternatives have cut down what gets ditched after one use, those materials could be problematic at a music festival, the footy, or a street party.

Glass can shatter, and there are health and sanitation rules for events that also must be adhered to, which often means plastic is the best material.

But that does not mean the plastic can’t be reusable.

Ms Stone said their cups were made of a more “durable” plastic compared with the flimsy version served up at the footy – which was more expensive to make, but much more sustainable.

“Our cups are sturdy, really hard to break. The point is we want them to be used 500 times,” she said at an expo in Melbourne called the Little Food Market.

The cups can be bought outright by a retailer, but in the case of the Little Food Market, thousands have been rented for the weekend.

“Thirty thousand visitors and 30,000 bettercups,” event organiser Ruta Marcinkus told the ABC.

“All events do produce a lot of waste, unfortunately.

In this scenario, the cups are ready to be collected by ticket holders when they enter.

They are told to put them in special bins when they are done.

The cups are then collected and industrially sanitised by the bettercup founders and a small workforce in Keysborough.

“We’ve seen it all when it comes to dirty cups — chewing gum, lipstick, everything,” Ms Kamphuis said.

Ms Kamphuis said the cups were being used and reused across Australia at events including Darwin Festival, WOMADelaide, Sydney Opera House, and Dark Mofo.

City of Melbourne Lord Mayor Nicholas Reece said the cups would also be on show at a number of its events later this year.

“We’ve partnered with them, with our Now or Never festival and Melbourne Fashion Week,” he said.

“And since we’ve partnered with them [earlier this year], we’ve reduced the number of disposable cups by the City of Melbourne by 160,000. That’s a real difference to waste in this town.”

Growing number of reuse businesses

Green Music Australia chief executive officer Berish Bilander said bettercup was one of a growing number of businesses that were addressing single-use waste at festivals and events.

He said other businesses offered reusable plates and bottles, and tent, marquee and chair hire.

But he said both event organisers and governments needed to commit to limiting waste for there to be an impact.

“We need to see governments investing more in these solutions and enabling these businesses to compete with the old throwaway systems.”