14 DAY TRIAL // Quite soon after the town of Concord in Massachusetts officially banned bottled water, coffee giant Starbucks has made it public news that it also has plans to green up its working agenda by rolling out $1 (€0.75) reusable cups.
It is the company's hope that this project will help reduce the amounts of trash coffee enthusiasts produce on a daily basis.
This is because, rather than simply throwing away their coffee cup once they are done getting their dose of caffeine-based delights, customers will have the opportunity to hold on to it and reuse it when the time comes for them to get a new “fix.”
According to PressConnects, these $1 reusable coffee cups are to be sold in Starbucks stores in the US and Canada.
The green-oriented coffee cups will be fairly similar to the disposable ones in terms of size and shape, and the company's logo is to be displayed on each of them.
In order to convince more customers to opt for these reusable cups, Starbucks promises a dime discount for each refill.
Seeing how this basically means that the cups pay for themselves in ten uses' time, it is quite likely that financial incentives alone will convince some people to embrace a greener way of drinking coffee.
Starbucks also wished to draw attention to the fact that customers will not even have to bother about cleaning up the cups prior to bringing them in for a refill.
Thus, the company's staff is to use a boiling-water rinse to make sure the cups are spin-and-span before filling them up once again.
Up until now, the cups have been tested in as many as 600 stores across the Pacific Northwest, and Starbucks says that customers have responded very well to them.
“Reducing the environmental impact of our cups depends on the success of two interrelated efforts: developing recyclable cup solutions and dramatically increasing our customers’ use of reusable cups,” the company argues.
Furthermore, “Every paper cup saved helps keep our forests intact.”