The quest for the 100% recyclable cup.
The Starbucks cup is a widely recognized symbol of our company. The environmental impact of our disposable paper and plastic cups is a big area of concern to our customers and we are committed to significantly reducing this impact by 2015.
What we’ve been doing.
Starbucks has spent more than ten years looking for ways to decrease the environmental impact of our disposable cups. In 1997 we developed our recycled-content cup sleeve as a way to curb the use of “double cupping” to protect customers from hot beverages and also to reduce our environment impact.
In 2006 we launched the industry’s first hot beverage paper cup with post-consumer recycled fiber. And in 2008, with the launch of our Vivanno™ beverages, we rolled out a new plastic cup that has less of an environmental impact than our original plastic cups.
We know we can do more, and we want to make thoughtful choices about our disposable cups and other packaging. This means not simply buying an “off the shelf” solution, but assessing the true environmental impacts our packaging has throughout its lifecycle and developing innovative solutions.
Reusable mugs and cups.
A lot of our customers are also working to reduce their own environmental impact even as we are. To help them help us, we offer a 10-cent discount in the U.S. and Canada to encourage customers to use their own reuable mugs for their beverages. Customers staying in a store can also request that their beverages be served in a ceramic mug.
Our U.S. and Canadian customers increased their use of reusable mugs to nearly 22 million times during fiscal 2008 – representing nearly one million pounds (454,000 kilograms) of paper saved. The percentage of total transactions where reusable mugs were used remained constant at 1.3 percent.
We think good habits should start with us. So we’ve challenged our U.S. partners (employees) to use only for-here cups for their own beverages – which would save more than 39 million cups per year. We’ve also asked them to encourage for-here customers to use ceramic cups and commuter mugs when they are taking their beverage to go.
Hurdles.
Reducing the environmental impact of our cups depends on the success of two interrelated efforts: developing recyclable cups and dramatically increasing our customers’ use of reusable mugs.
Increasing the use of reusable mugs has been a challenge in recent years. Part of this is simply a lack of awareness of this choice. We can change that. Our goal is that 25 percent of our cups will be reusable, and we hope to reach that by working with our partners to spread the news to our customers. We also intend to re-establish ceramic mugs as the global standard for our in-store beverages.
What we’re working on.
Our goal is that by 2015 100 percent of our cups will be reusable or recyclable. To help achieve this goal, we’ve made the following commitments:
- Developing and launching recyclable hot and cold cups by 2012
- Reducing paper and plastic cup usage in our stores by 25 percent by using reusable mugs instead
- Having recycling available in our stores
- Re-establishing glassware or ceramic mugs as our global standard for our customers who enjoy their beverages in our stores
- Converting all of our plastic cups to polypropylene in our stores in North America and Latin America, and Foodservice accounts by 2009
