Starbucks’ Reusable Cups are Back and Better Than Ever!

Using a reusable water bottle comes with ease, but adjusting to bringing a reusable coffee cup to your local coffee shop seems like an impossible task to make habitual. For whatever reason, it is just THAT much harder to bring a reusable cup to get coffee. 

It is estimated that 2.5 billion single-use coffee cups are discarded globally every year. This equates to a staggering 5000 every minute. If a person throws away one coffee cup per day, that adds up to 23lbs of waste per year. That’s just one cup… I know most of us drink more than that! No one wants that waste impact on their conscience! 

You may or may not know that Starbucks used to let you use a reusable coffee cup, but since COVID, they have not been allowing customers to use their own cups for cleanliness purposes. This couldn’t have come at a worse time for me, because I had just gotten it into my routine to bring my cup with me.

Good news though – reusable cups are back and better than ever! (It has since been deduced that there is no COVID related risk to using reusable coffee cups in Starbucks stores)

Convenience

To better build a habit, you need to take into consideration the level of convenience or inconvenience this new habit will bring. It might make more sense to leave a reusable coffee cup in your car or at your desk so that you can grab it and go when you’re going on your coffee run. 

I personally go to the Starbucks drive through near my house when I’m in a rush, so I keep an extra cup in my car!

Using a reusable cup is not only convenient for the environment, but it’s actually a better way to keep your hot/cold beverage it’s respective temperature! Now that’s convenience! 

Additionally, when using a personal cup you can choose to use one with a secure lid for easier transportation. No more carrying your coffee when standing on the train – you can safely keep it in your bag! 

Saving Money 

Did you know that for each time you bring a reusable cup into starbucks you get a 10 cent discount off of your drink? That may seem small, but it really does add up over time. If you go to Starbucks just once a week for an entire year, that’s almost $5 in savings- which is another cup of coffee! Win/win! 

Positive Impact

The production of single-use plastic cups cups, as well as their disposal, has led to a large amount of adverse environmental impacts, global warming, and even pollution. Disposable coffee cups have been found to contain plastics that do not break down and are damaging to the environment. Over 20 million trees are cut down each year to produce single-use paper cups. Coffee cups are estimated to be the second-largest contributor to litter waste after plastic bottles. Odds are, you’ve made the switch to a reusable water bottle … so now let’s make this switch! 

Disposable coffee cups impact on the environment by creating more garbage in landfill, adding plastic pollution to oceans and using up resources such as paper. The US uses around 108 billion disposable cups per year and worldwide it is estimated that 500 billion are discarded to landfill each year.

As mentioned before, if a person throws away one coffee cup per day, that adds up to 23lbs of waste per year. That means if just one person makes the switch to a reusable coffee cup, we can eliminate 23 pounds of waste per year. If you make that change and keep it for the next 10 years, that’s 230 pounds of waste eliminated! 

By using reusable coffee cups you can help eliminate this huge problem and lessen those numbers! Let’s all enjoy our coffee in an environmentally friendly way!