Campus Caffeine Culture
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Welcome Week is the much-anticipated event signalling the start of the university academic year. It is celebrated with many freebies, most of which contain the university students' not so secret weapon - caffeine. Pushing through the excited crowds of people at Welcome Week made us reflect on how we view caffeine on campus.
The caffeine culture on university campuses is introduced early. We receive free energy drinks at orientation with ‘loots’ widely promoted across social media. We have easy access to a variety of affordable caffeinated drinks throughout campuses, and our social life is not complete without a coffee at the closest cafe.
The experience of being a student reliant on caffeine is hardly unique and incredibly well studied. In particular, many studies look at the adverse health effects of an excessive consumption of caffeine.
Most studies state that caffeine increases anxiety, poor mental wellbeing, feeling palpitations, digestive problems and more. Conversely, students felt that caffeine helps with alertness and increased cognitive function, which from a student's perspective are ideal outcomes for completing academic work. As nutrition and dietetic students we are challenged with helping our peers strike the balance of wellbeing and enjoying their daily caffeine hit.
Now students can find a new addition helping fuel the caffeine craze, Flying Turtle vending machines. If you haven’t already seen the ‘Robotic Baristas’, they provide students 24/7 access to on-the-spot coffee, tea, protein shakes, frappes, smoothies, hot milks and sodas.
The latest item on the menu is the Turtle Energy drink, which comes with a variety of fruit flavour options. While we have embraced these machines for their accessibility and affordability, two main questions weigh on our minds; how much caffeine are we consuming, and what is the potential environmental impact?
A quick peak at the Flying Turtle website quickly answers one of these questions. The coffee cups are made of PLA bioplastic, a biodegradable material, associated with a lower carbon footprint and less toxic decomposition than other plastic options. Additionally, the cold drink cups and lids are made of polypropylene, a type of hard plastic that can be recycled if cleaned and dried prior to disposal. Although the shift to more environmentally friendly packaging is promising, the responsibility then falls to us as consumers to ensure we dispose of these products correctly to reduce environmental impact.
A deep dive into the website and social media leaves us still coming up short on the answer to our second question, the caffeine content. A small amount of information was provided on a single Instagram post from the 1st November 2025, displaying the energy drink caffeine content at 115mg.
It’s worth noting, vending machines exist in a grey area of nutrition information labelling with no explicit legal obligation or directive on how to provide this information. However, with the adverse effects of high doses of caffeine well documented, we feel this information should be easily accessible to students, enabling them to make informed caffeine choices. This follows one study that found that students often did not know the average caffeine content of common drinks.
So, to support students making informed choices when purchasing their midday (or midnight) caffeine hit, we encourage the Flying Turtle vending machines to display the caffeine content on the order page prior to purchase.
On top of this, we can create an informed caffeine culture around campuses by displaying the recommended daily maximum levels of caffeine consumption near EFTPOS terminals wherever caffeine is available for purchase. This is follows the 8700 campaign which lays out the amount of energy the average person needs each day to fuel their life.
While caffeine is an integral part of student life, we deserve to know how much is in our drinks.
