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Not only are they not recyclable, but there's a water cost, energy cost, and a pollution cost to making them. Obviously the fate of humanity doesn't depend on w
by alecst 5y ago
Not only are they not recyclable, but there's a water cost, energy cost, and a pollution cost to making them. Obviously the fate of humanity doesn't depend on what we do with our coffee cups. But in my opinion the best solution is to have people bring their own cups and just reuse them, and unfortunately only a small percent of people do that.
Back in grad school, to get people to bring their own cups more often, we had the idea to leverage the concept of loss aversion, inspired by the grocery bag "ban" in Los Angeles:
If coffee cost $1.10, instead of giving a $.10 discount for bringing your own cup, we'd lower the price of coffee to $1.00 and charge an extra $.10 for the cup that you forgot to bring.
It turned that another student at Tufts had had the same idea, actually implemented the pilot program at their Tower Cafe, and got great results. Same level of reduction that you get from charging people to bring their own grocery bags.
So with the proof of concept, student surveys, theory behind the idea, etc. we put together the proposal. Six months later we presented to the leadership of the dining program. But the person in charge vetoed it. Her reasoning? "This idea just makes me cringe." And that was the end of it.
I believe this is an idea with long legs and I'm still willing to work on it. Maybe someday soon.
You can read the presentation here: https://a.tmp.ninja/WXcXxXh.pdf https://a.tmp.ninja/WXcXxXh.pdf (I just picked a random filehosting service, let me know if there's something better out there.)
By the way, everything we know about cup recyclability, Starbucks also knows (and knew in the 1990s). And, if I recall correctly, they knew also knew that providing a discount for bringing your own cup _did not_ increase the rate at which people did it. (If there's enough interest I'll dig up the paper, and I can check if my memory serves me right.)
Unfortunately there hasn't been a lot of pressure on Starbucks to change. This, in my opinion, is not a problem that should be solved with good faith alone, but rather with some kind of tax/fine that applies to all players in the game. Kind of the like the bag ban and grocery store chains.
I'm particularly fond of the "charging for cups" idea because you can then use that money to fund recycling or waste cleanup programs.
- Jtsummers 5y agoStarbucks offered a discount for bringing your own cup for coffee. Though I rarely got anything other than their plain coffee so I honestly don't know if that discount also applied to the "fancy" drinks. I know they stopped letting you bring your own cup in 2020, not sure if they've resumed their use.
- misframer 5y agoThey brought it back[0]. I remember getting discounts for lattes and mochas. [0] https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2021/starbucks-brings-back-personal-reusable-cups-to-starbucks-cafes-in-the-us/ https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2021/starbucks-brings-...
- 908B64B197 5y ago> We put together the proposal, and we made it to the leadership of the dining program before the woman in charge vetoed it. Her reasoning? "This idea just makes me cringe." That was the end of it. Which university was that?
- alecst 5y agoUCLA.
- 908B64B197 5y agoHave you considered checking is Stanford/Berkley/Caltech are doing it and going directly to her boss?
- mattharney 5y agoExcellent point - over 60% of the lifecycle costs of a cup are in the earlier phases (like raw materials, production, and transport). So bringing your own cup is by FAR the best way to mitigate your own personal footprint.
- sokoloff 5y agoBrewing coffee at home or in the office rather than driving to Starbucks is perhaps a better way. (Disregard for those who walk to Starbucks, but I suspect a lot more environmental impact happens driving to and idling in line at the drive-to Starbucks than from the cups.)
- ramesh31 5y ago>But in my opinion the best solution is to have people bring their own cups and just reuse them, and unfortunately only a small percent of people do that. You could also just make your own coffee at home and cut out the entire environmental impact of doing business with a wasteful company at all. But this doesn't solve the problem of "I'm somewhere with no coffee, and I want coffee" which Starbucks does. Focusing on making their cups sustainable is probably a much better solution than expecting people to lug around coffee mugs all day.
- alecst 5y agoMy specific proposal is about giving you the option to buy a cup if you want it, and not if you don't. Everybody wins!
- Claire42 5y agoIt would be great if everyone could bring their own reusable cup each time they go to shop I agree!
- exhilaration 5y agoArguably, from an environmental and resources standpoint, isn't it better to centralize coffee-making in a few coffee shops rather everyone having their own coffee making equipment at home?
- Jtsummers 5y agoHow could that possibly be better environmentally? You're introducing a great deal more commuting (remember, most of the US is not walkable, people aren't walking to coffee shops and their places of work) and idle time for vehicles. And if the shops are consuming a great deal of single-use resources it will produce more waste than making coffee at home, where most people have mugs.
- ramesh31 5y agoFrom a pure energy standpoint, simple thermodynamics would dictate he's right. Producing industrial quantities of coffee in a commercial brewer would be much more efficient than individual coffee pots. However all the confounding factors you mention probably balance it in favor of home production.
- kawsper 5y agoCoffeeshops (Costa and Starbucks) in the UK offers a 25p discount if you bring your own cup. Just be aware that there are some strange terms and conditions: Costa requires you to have a lid, or else they can refuse to use it, the rule seems bizarre since they will happily fill your coffee in a lidless ceramic mug, but if you bring a lidless metal thermo mug like mine it is a no-go: https://www.snowpeak.com/collections/mugs/products/ti-double-h450-stacking-mug-tw-122 https://www.snowpeak.com/collections/mugs/products/ti-double...
- alecst 5y agoIt's definitely better than nothing, but sadly this has a very small effect on consumer behavior. This was the main thrust of my presentation. My proposal was to change the way this "discount" is realized -- by giving everyone the discount, and then only charging people who buy the cups.
- throaway46546 5y agoI've seen someone bring their own bags to the grocery store like four or five times since the bag ban got implemented here in LA County. Everyone just gets the thicker plastic "reusable" bags and treats them as disposable. Honestly I think it has made things worse when it comes to the amount of plastic use.
- Jtsummers 5y agoThat seems weird, to me. To see it so little, I lived in GA from 2010-2020 and there was no bag ban. I saw way more reusable bags than just four or five times over the last 5 years I was there (about the same time as the bag ban has been in effect in CA). And this was going to the bog standard grocery stores, nothing fancy.
- quantified 5y agoMaybe if they were $2 each instead of $0.25 then...
- forgotmypw17 5y ago>But in my opinion the best solution is to have people bring their own cups and just reuse them, and unfortunately only a small percent of people do that. It's also systematically/institutionally discouraged at most places. It was before 2020, and even more so now. Most places (e.g. many Starbucks) will not let you use a reusable cup when you actually try, even while advertising their "green" policies. Go ahead and try it, most of the time they'll suggest you pour it into your own reusable cup right after they pour it into a disposable one for you. There are many other reasons to avoid letting a corpo make your drink.