[houshuang]

At most festivals in Switzerland, you have a single kind of reusable plastic cup, for which you pay a deposit of a few Euro. You can then hand it back at any venue part of the festival and get the deposit back. Of course it requires some dishwashing facilities, but it seems to work very well, everyone is used to it, and it avoids massive heaps of garbage.

[avar]

We have these in Amsterdam too. I'll buy a beer with one of these, then by the time I'm ready to leave the lines are so long that I think "fuck it" and throw it in my bike saddlebag thinking I'll bring it back next year. It's not worth it to stand 15 minutes in a line to get 2 EUR back.

But of course I forget about it and just buy a new one at the same festival next year, and each festival will only accept their own branded cups.

So now I have a pile of these things sitting in my shed, there really needs to be some ISO standard for these plastic pints and it be made illegal to not accept ones from other festivals. I now have like 20 EUR worth of otherwise worthless plastic crap I can't exchange or sell except once a year at specific locations.

[jasonkostempski]

They're not branded with custom design for the event? Seems like something you could easily sell if it were. Either way, I like your idea about a standard, similar to TSA Approved beverage containers.

[Yetanfou]

The Rail Ale festival in Wales [1] uses branded half-pints as entry tickets. The festival is spread out (the 'rail' part) over several locations, entry to which is granted on display of that year's half-pint glass. Once finished said half-pint ends up in the cupboard, to be pulled out when sharing a beer with friends. An avid visitor might end up with quite a few of them, true, but theses glasses being both useful as well as decorative this is not much of a problem.

[1] http://rail-ale.com/