In an effort to increase customer adoption of reusable cups, Starbucks is rolling out a $1 reusable plastic cup at its cafes starting Thursday. The plastic cups will be roughly the same size and appearance as the company’s paper cups. Starbucks will give a 10 cents discount to customers using the cups, so the cost is recouped after 10 uses. As with other reusable cups, the new cups will be cleaned with boiling water each time customers bring them in. In 2008, the company had said it wanted to serve 25 percent of all drinks in reusable cups by 2015. That goal has since been reduced to 5 percent. Via NY Daily News and Sustainable Brands.

By Kristina de Verdier on 4 January, 2013 In Coffee, packaging, reusable, starbucks

58 billion paper coffee cups are thrown away, unrecycled, each year. The BetaCup Challenge – is asking designers to invent a mean to dramatically reduce the wastage resulting from unrecyclable paper coffee cups. Here are two of the ideas; Coffee to grow and 100% recyclable Une Coffee Cup. See more of the most promising ideas here

By Kristina de Verdier on 28 April, 2010 In Beverages, coffee cup, Competition, contest, Design, Material, package, packaging design, recyclable, starbucks

Starbucks has a goal to develop a comprehensive recyclable cup solution by 2012. Today Starbuck´s cups can only be recycled and composted in some communities – far from all. Therefore they have now initiated a cup-recycling program in cooperation with Global Green USA´s Coalition for Resource Recovery. It´s a pilot to test the collection and recycling of coffee cups when combined with old corrugated cardboard, which should be the most extensively recycled material in the U.S. They are looking over the entire system; material usage and design of cups as well as logistic and how to collect them after usage. Pratts Sustainable Design Incubator has helped them with the guidelines. It´s great that a big company like this is investing in this and hopefully giving new opportunities to the entire coffee shop market. Read more on Greener Package

By Kristina de Verdier on 14 September, 2009 In Beverages, Cardboard, Coffee, corrugated, Design, green, packaging, pratts, starbucks, sustainability