Coffee cups make up the bulk of the contents of a street trash can in central London. Photo: Pictures Ltd./Corbis (Getty Images)
Starbucks’ iconic green and white disposable cups may soon be the subject of nostalgia as the coffee chain says it will switch to reusable cups across the US and Canada by the end of next year. Customers will be able to bring their own cup, buy it from Starbucks, or borrow and return a cup to be washed between customers.
Some people may scoff at borrowing and returning reusable cups shared by other customers, but in essence, this will make Starbucks look like any other dine-in restaurant where one cup will be used by hundreds or thousands of people before the end of the year. its life cycle.
The company is several years behind the previous deadline of a quarter of customers using reusable cups. Back in 2008, Starbucks set a goal of having at least 25% of customers drink from reusable cups by 2015, but it hasn’t met that goal, according to USA Today. The company later announced a phase-out of plastic straws and encouraged customers to use plastic lids in the form of non-spill cups.
Those chunky lids actually had more plastic than the original lids that were made for straws. At the time, Starbucks explained that these new lids were made from recyclable polypropylene. But less than 10% of the world’s plastic is actually recycled, so Starbucks would probably be better off just sticking to straws.
The new disposable cup ban will allow coffee drinkers to buy, borrow or bring their reusable cups to Starbucks across the US and Canada by the end of next year. This includes people who go to one of the places, order online and shop in storefronts.
Starbucks announced a “borrow a cup” trial at several of its Seattle locations last April as part of Earth Month. The program is also being tested in Japan, London and Singapore, where customers can order drinks in reusable cups, which are then returned to Starbucks for professional cleaning and reuse.
Ending single-use plastic and paper cups will eliminate about 20% of Starbucks’ global waste, Michael Kobori, the company’s sustainability director, told CNBC. The shift from disposable to reusable cups is part of the company’s effort to reduce company waste by 50% by 2030.