News

May 1, 2009

Perking Up Greener Cup Options

Two of the industry’s highest volume coffee sellers are trying to reduce the number of disposable cups they contribute to the garbage stream. One has set that goal at zero.

Starbucks aims to use solely reusable or recyclable cups by 2015, according to its recently posted annual Global Responsibility report. Its approach includes encourage patrons to buy drinks in reusable mugs and to develop and adopt a recyclable cup by 2012.

Simultaneously, Dunkin’ Donuts is testing a program that encourages patrons to use reusable cups for hot drinks. The effort is one franchisee’s initiative at a green store that opened in October St. Petersburg, Fla. The store is an environmental lab of sorts for the entire Dunkin’ system.

The company hopes to create a system-wide reusable mug program based on what it learns from the St. Petersburg store’s experience, says Dan Lavender, construction manager for the all-franchised chain.

Beverage orders served in a reusable mug easily could exceed 5 percent to 10 percent of total volume, or roughly the percentage now reported by the Florida test unit, Lavender says.

The effort there includes a 10-cent discount on drinks served in containers provided by the customer. Wall placards and signs at the serving counter encourage patrons to use mugs.

Like most Dunkin’ units, the store has reusable mugs for sale, Lavender notes.

Likewise, Starbucks offers a 10-cent discount on drinks served in a patron-provided container. It also has an array of permanent-ware cups on sale for use in-store or at home. It encourages patrons to take a “mug pledge” to reduce their environmental footprint.

The chain also asks employees to set an example by using “for-here cups” when they have a beverage at work. That step alone would keep 39 million disposable cups out of the garbage stream, the home office says.

Starbucks says its baristas filled reusable coffee mugs 22 million more times in 2008 than the year before. Yet only 1.3 percent of transactions involved a mug, the chain’s corporate-responsibility Web site acknowledges.

Part of the problem simply is a lack of awareness, the company says. But it intends to change that.

The economic advantages of mug use clearly are evident. Starbucks says it bought more than 2.7 billion paper cups in 2008. Shifting 25 percent of sales to reusable cups would cut that volume by roughly 675 million containers.

“Every time a customer brings in a reusable mug, that’s one fewer cup a business owner must pay for,” Dunkin’s Lavender says.