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Editor's Note: Scott Seydel, board chairman of Global Green and the GreenBlue Institute, attended the Starbucks Cup Summit this week and provided this post.
Can your Starbucks coffee cup be recycled, and if so, is it really worth it?
Starbucks' Ben Packard, the vice president of Global Responsibility, and his running mate, Jim Hanna, the director of Environmental Impact, think so -- and they invited 30 cup, cupstock and coating manufacturers, recyclers, waste managers and university researchers to Seattle this week to have a chat about it.
The experts were matched up with an equal number of Starbucks professionals in sessions that included a talk led by CEO Howard Schultz. From Monday's opening reception and dinner through the next full day at SBUX headquarters, every aspect of the iconic coffee cup was discussed as if the subject was "the beans."
Three billion of the world's 200 billion-plus paper cups that start as trees and end up at the dump each year bear the Starbucks logo, and Packard and Hanna are taking on the responsibility to fulfill the promise Schultz made to 10,000 baristas who met in New Orleans last October: All the company's iconic coffee cups will be recyclable by 2012.
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Experts, who agree on the premise, have already begun examining ways to knock down barriers to reaching the goal, and some very interesting facts are emerging in the process.
Joel Kendrick, Western Michigan University's director of Paper & Coating facilities, reported that his laboratory has conducted preliminary trials indicating that many paper coffee cups in today's market are readily repulpable and recyclable.
Kendrick applied the Fibre Box Association's wax alternative protocol procedures to several of these cups and found some, including the familiar Starbucks cup, are certifiably recyclable under the industry-approved standard. "We believe recyclability can be determined in a certified lab and thus divert many thousands of tons of usable fiber from going to landfills," said Kendrick.
Annie White, who directs Global Green's Coalition for Resource Recovery (CoRR), co-authored a white paper with Kendrick detailing how spent cups and food packaging certified as OCC (old corrugated cardboard) grade could hitch a free ride to recycling mills if source separated. Dick Lilly, business area manager for waste prevention at Seattle's Public Utilities, reported that Starbucks' hot beverage cups (among others) are already considered recyclable and are recycled as paper in Seattle. Thus recyclers may be receptive to CoRR's cup and cartonstock certification program, if it serves to upgrade that recyclability from "mixed paper" to "OCC equivalent."
CoRR's current program will facilitate collection of spent cups from a representative number of Starbucks shops in Manhattan and utilize the city's efficient OCC collection/distribution systems to deliver them to Pratt Industries' recycling plant on Staten Island.
"Receptacles that are fitted with special paper liners will be provided for consumer use to collect spent cups, and those paper sacks will be bound in the OCC bundles that are daily shipped to the Pratt plant," said White. "Within 72 hours after being discarded, the cups collected in this demonstration program will be component in linerboard used to form New York's take-out pizza boxes."
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Across the country, the problem of recovering recyclables from that haven't been separated from the waste stream is being addressed.
At Allied Waste's Rabanco facility in south Seattle, the northwest's largest and most automated Material Recovery Facility (MRF), Pete Keller assured visitors during a pre-summit tour that it is possible to separate recyclable cups when they are recognizably marked so that electronic sorters or line pickers can divert them from streams.
Jerry Bartlett, the chief environmental and sustainability officer at nationally known composting facility Cedar Grove in Seattle, solved the recognition problem by awarding a "compost-brown" stripe to pre-tested and approved food packaging suitable for commercial composting. Cedar Grove's Susan Thoman showed visitors to the site how items are tested on a massive commercial scale to earn that "compost-brown" certification.
At the summit, International Paper's Marketing and Business Strategies Director Kristen Newman pointed to IP's popular ecotainer as an example of a certified compostable container. She also spoke about how special functionalities and performance demands can be embodied in a single material. But she cautioned that there is, of course, give and take in balancing properties such as performance, compostability and recyclability.
As the nation's leading resource for lifecycle analysis data on original materials used in manufacturing packaging, the GreenBlue Institute has established criteria for determining costs, carbon footprint, compatibilities and end-of-life properties through its Sustainable Packaging Coalition, which was represented at the Starbucks Cup Summit by Senior Fellow Martha Stevenson. GreenBlue and the SPC assess claims with regard to LCAs, and Stevenson has overseen the creation of SPC's Compass (comparative packaging assessment).
"Compass is an online software tool for packaging designers and engineers to assess the human and environmental impacts of their packaging designs" Stevenson said. "In achieving the Starbucks promise, each element of the cup's composition will need to be considered insofar as its sustainability criteria." As a founding member and frequent sponsor of SPC programs, Starbucks will use the Compass measurement tool to help achieve the recyclability goals, said Hanna.
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Stephanie Jones, vice president of the Canadian Restaurant & Foodservices Association, noted that as the process moves forward, it is important to reframe the discussion to involve stakeholders in developing common, realizable protocols and standards for recycling and composting.
Jones said various container materials, including coffee cups, are being recycled and composted in Canadian municipalities today, and that working to establish common standards has assisted operators in making packaging choices -- and in educating consumers and the government officials responsible for making infrastructure investments.
"In Canada," Jones said, "the patchwork of regulations are pushing and pulling stakeholders in different directions and this creates confusion. Protocols and standards will assist in holding all stakeholders, including consumers, accountable for behavior as we all work together to achieve diversion objectives."
North America accounts for almost 60 percent of the more than 220 billion paper cups used each year around the world.
Though not a principal topic of the cup summit, Starbucks has recently lightweighted its cups for iced and frozen drinks by switching to polypropylene plastics from polyethylene terephthalate, according to Amanda Holder, the sustainable packaging supervisor for Berry Plastics. Future cold cup recycling opportunities for the reclaimed polypropylene could serve existing markets for tufted carpet scrim, clothes hangers, or lotion and cosmetic bottles.
As the summit drew to a close, attendees affirmed their confidence that Starbucks leadership in community, individual, societal and associate issues, as well as the company's ability to maintain personal relationships with customers, give it leverage to initiate a movement that will make beverage and food packaging recyclable in form and practice across the industry.
In closing, each person spoke about lessons learned and take-home knowledge. Starbucks' Packaging Development Senior Buyer Margaret Papadakis said participants must keep the project on track and up to speed internally and externally. The Starbucks Advisory Council needs to set the strategy so technical leads may in turn set project scope and milestones within their teams.
Summit participants agreed that it's time to develop a new "standard" disposable cup in the industry that takes into consideration the container's end of life. There were a variety of business backgrounds and priorities represented, but remarkably these diversities are compatible in collective reasoning.
Mary White, the senior manager for Environmental Supplier Outreach at PepsiCo Global Procurement, offered this observation: "I'm impressed by the level of passion in the collective group and the desire to focus this energy towards an industrywide solution."
Scott Seydel is board chairman of Global Green and the GreenBlue Institute. He's also a director of the Container Recycling Institute, the National Recycling Coalition, Atlanta Recycles and New York's Coalition for Resource Recycling.
Summit photographs courtesy of Scott Seydel.
Images of Starbucks coffee cups CC licensed by Flickr user powerbooktrance
i like "Do your research tree huggers" comment.
Blah blah blah. Don't hate on the company. Hate on yourselves for being wasteful consumers. All this talk about "to go" cups...How many of you folks decided to go thru a Starbucks Drive-Thru because you needed a fix and got a paper cup instead of bringing your own cup or decided not to hang out in the store and use their "for here" mugs.. lame.
Thinking the Wrong Way
As more companies jump onto the sustainability idea, it is important to define what exactly "sustainability" entails. Sustainability is not about being "less bad," it should be based on an innovative solution that examines all parts of the product and its life-cycle. Sustainable means that there are no negative externalities. One of the problems with this solution is that to recycle still takes a lot of resources. Making the cups also takes a lot of resources.
I found a reusable solution
There is a glass to-go option I found at glassrootsmovement.org. If enough people start using their own cups like that, problem solved. It has a basically spill-proof lid and even the option of a glass straw. Indestructable unless you throw it from a tall building onto the concrete it seems. If you can use it even a year it basically still solves the problem.
Cups
The PLA-lined cups leak. We've tried several in our stores and always with the same results.
We have plenty of ceramic cups in the store and many people use them. We always ask "in house?" On the order. In fact, we set up our Point of Sale to measure this issue. It's new so the data is not broad, yet.
We encourage and discount for people who bring in their own travel mugs even though we must rinse and steam sanitize before we pour our drinks. I have a whole group of school bus drivers in each morning who can debate the merits of various travel mug designs.
All cold drink go cups and lids are PLA and, supposedly, compostable.
I would like a third-party certification of to go cups because the marketing claims of various companies are confusing. Which are recyclable under what standards? Which are compostable under what standards (a commercial composting landfill, for example)? It does no good to tout recyclable or compostable if your local waste/recycling companies don't have the proper facilities. The cup will end up in a general landfill regardless.
Jack
Conscious Cup Coffee Roasters
I don't see the need for the
I don't see the need for the negative comments. This is a good thing. customers aren't always going to have their own cup or want to sit and use a re-useable cup at Starbucks. So the company is doing a good thing by trying by reducing waste.
Already discounted
SBUX already discounts for use of a personal cup--it/s 10 cents on a $1.95 drink. I use a personal cup which keeps it hotter and saves me 5% of the daily cost of coffee. No one makes me do it--it's my choice.
Will getting rid of cups reduce the price of coffee?
Maybe they should just use non-bleached biodegradable cups so we could just thrown them on the ground like Canadians do with their Tim Hortens Cups (only theirs aren't non-bleached nor biodegradable).
"It Mug" + Discount
in the country where I came from (the Philippines), it is considered cool to be having coffee in Starbucks. They are just about everywhere. You walk for 10mins and there´s another Starbucks shop.
Having a cup of Starbucks in your hand is like having the "it" thing of fashion. I was just thinking though that... since Starbucks is already selling other things aside from coffee (cd´s, for example) maybe they can sell a super fashionable, super cute reusable mug/cup. With enough good advertisement, I really believe that it's gonna "click". Then, if you go back to Starbucks to have that dose of caffeine, and bring your "it mug" then applies the .25 discount.
***3 Little Birds Pitched by My Doorstep***
COFFEE...TASK OR TASTE..we all play a role in this drama.
I very much appreciate the efforts by the starbucks corporation to put recyclable paper cups in their stores. This is a wonderful Green step.
IN ADDITION to this, I recommend one other policy and that is to have all your baristas ask their clients if they want that coffee, tea etc TO STAY!
I can't speak for all starbucks stores but those that I've frequented here in Calgary / Canmore Alberta NEVER ask me if I want my coffee to stay. Instead they assume I want it in a paper cup. I'm not a major crazy environmentalist, I can't claim that I always bring my own cup into the store to get coffee but when I have the time I prefer to drink my coffee in a real mug.
On earth day this year, I ordered my coffee to stay and observed 30 people line up to get their drinks in a span of 15 minutes. Out of them 2 people brought their own mugs (and got free coffee), about 19 left with thier paper cup, 9 sat in the store with their paper cut and 1 (me) had a mug. When you do the math some 53 000 cups were wasted because those that stayed didn't get their coffee in a mug. This is shocking!!!
More shocking than this is the thought that all these people 'PREFER' to 'ENJOY' their coffee from a plastic topped paper cup. Would you drink a great glass of wine from a plastic cup? NO! While starbucks is responsible for not 'ASKING US IF WE WANT TO STAY', WE THE CONSUMER ARE EQUALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR NOT TAKING THE MOMENT TO SIT DOWN AND ENJOY OUR COFFEE FROM A REAL MUG.
Coffee, like wine is meant to be savoured, not rushed out of the coffee shop. HAVE WE REDUCED COFFEE TO A TASK RATHER THAN A TASTE? Do we value the freedom of being able to bound out of the store for some 'oh so important' event that we can't just sit down and have a coffee for 15 minutes?
We've become a TO GO SOCIETY! I VOTE INSTEAD THAT WE 'STAY'!
Gimme a break sometimes!!
I work at a "We Proudly Brew" inside a hotel, and the hotel prides itself on recycling, we even have bins out that are clearly marked, however I am soooo tired of sorting the trash from recycling because people are to lazy or blind to notice the large letters in their faces that say recycling: paper, plastic and glass only.
I also work near a very cutting edge environmental government company, and I am lectured daily about recycling. (Which I try to do, but above doesn't help). I had this gentleman go on and on and proceed to raise his voice about using the paper cups. Unfortunately our outlet is very limited on space and can't hold more then 2 glass cups for usage... I tell him I can go next door and get one for him, but he shakes his head and orders the drink anyways. Then comes back for a refill. With my tail in between my legs I ask if he would like to use the cup I gave him and he goes... Oh I threw it away. Right...
What about the plastic cups?
They are a #5, which my recycling service won't take. how about switching to a #1?
I agree with Daniel. On a
I agree with Daniel. On a daily basis, I deal with customers who tell me they want their coffee to stay, yet when they get an actual mug, they insist I make a new drink in a paper cup. I practice Just Say Yes, so I re-make their drink with a smile on my face. But isn't it possibe that it's time to Just Say No to that? Or if not say no, to at least get the ok from management to communicate what this does to the environment? We pride ourselves in being an eco-friendly company, so shouldn't we make customers aware of the amounts of trash we could avoid with their help?
Don't use paper cups unless needed would help even more.
As a barista, I can only say that tons of trash could be avoided if only people stopped using paper cups even though they're staying at the store to drink their coffee, or if they didn't make us wrap their sandwiches in tin foil which does not rot even though all they do is sit down at the next free table and eat at the store. Use plates! Use mugs! I know people think it looks so much cooler to drink their soy lattes from paper cups while talking about saving the environment, but I'd so appreciate it if they stopped talking and started doing something.
2 Billion Cups...
Amazing to imagine that number.
While working @ Starbucks i am often contemplating about the amount of garbage i collect when i do the rounds and make coffee. (am a Barista who is studying for a masters in Environ. Mgmt & Technology)
Schulz' promise is too loose. Should the cups be recyclable in 2012, does not mean that they actually get recycled!
Pet bottles are recyclable too and only a few countries actually manage to get a collection ratio from >50%.
My suggestion and observations to Mr. Schulz and Team:
1) Communicate and make aware about the facts and findings of the LCA to the teams. This can be done similar like a Promotion is communicated.
2) I observe that almost 40 - 50 % of customers take their coffee "to go" and then still consume in store. Has anyone ever collected data on this? Reasons?
Rgds
Daniel
25 cent discount = incentive to bring reusable cups and mugs
>Can your Starbucks coffee cup be recycled?
Probably, but at what cost environmentally speaking?
>and if so, is it really worth it?
Probably not.
I say give $B customers a 25 cent discount for bringing in their own travel mug. That's enough incentive to motivate people. Anything less simply isn't worth it.
Another vote for a better discount
I agree with the comments made here regarding re-usable cups. They're the way to go; they should be more heavily promoted; the discount to use them should be higher - .25 sounds good to me; and I should not have to remind the staff to give me that discount when I bring in my travel mug.
Offer better discount for bringing your own
I'm glad they are opening the dialogue about recycling and their paper cups. However, perhaps if they offer a bigger discount for bringing your own cup ($0.25 cents), more people would bring their own.
I nearly always bring my own personal cup in, (unless away from home). However, I frequently have to remind staff to give me the $0.10 discount.
Unfortunately, I rarely see other people bringing in their own cups when I'm there...
"Tree huggers"? Oh please....
Who pulled that prick's chain?
You can tell when someone's a right-wing redneck when they use the term 'tree-hugger' to describe someone who actually cares about their world rather than just shouting 'Idiot' from the driver's window of their SUV.
Who's the idiot?
charge more cups
I also agree with the previous post to charge an extra charge for cups. A .25 cent raise isnt going to make people not buy coffee from Starbucks when they typically are already spending $5 a cup. However it will make people think about bringing in there cups. Many people travel with a coffee mug and just never bring it in to refill or forget about it.
Where I shop for food I get charged an extra 10 cents for PER BAG if I dont bring my own. After a couple weeks of paying for them I now always bring my bags.
This is a perfect example of resetting your clients expectations.
Do your research tree huggers
A. They do give discounts for bringing in your own cup..ten cents.
B. They do have their own ceramic cups, just ask to use one if you are staying around to sip your coffee.
C. Stay home and sweat or freeze because you are not running your ac/heat and make your own coffee. Oh, and make sure to turn your computers off, you're wasting our energy and my time by spouting your nonsense.
D. I am going to start a coffee shop business where they dump the coffee directly into your mouth, that's as green as it gets. Idiots.
Why no mention of re-useable cups?
I'm glad Starbucks are continuing to question their practices and look at alternatives.
But, like other commenters, I'm really disappointed that this article makes no mention of encouraging more re-use of non-disposable cups by Starbucks customers.
I know Starbucks offers a small discount for re-usable cups, but if they are really serious about this stuff, why don't they really make a solid effort to further promote re-useable cups?
Clive
Absurd
charge someone for a cup? that will just cause someone NOT to want to come to starbucks. Lower sales. STUPID.
Charge for the cups, or discount for bringing a re-usable one
Why not do what's been proposed in numerous cities for plastic bags - charge some significant, non-life-changing amount, like $0.25, for a paper cup, and/or give a discount.
The most common and effective GREENWASHING examples
Are when companies make claims that are on target with their audience emotionally and depend on them not seeing the forest for the trees. With their 10% PCW cups, Starbucks claims to save thousands of trees each year from being cut down, killed, etc. At least two sins here: 1) a lot of the fiber used to make paper cups comes from sawmill residuals. Most trees are not "cut down" specifically to make just paper (Sin of no proof, possibly fibbing). 2) North America's forest cover has been growing, not declining as one infer from "cutting down trees" (Sin of Vagueness. Starbucks needs to stick to the landfill issues.
Schultz and Crew Just Don't Get It!
Schultz and Crew Just Don't Get It and they never will. It is just like the card board sleeve they brought into prominence instead of double cupping. The brown sleeve that they tout as being good for the environment just brought about a completely new waste stream of fossil fuel polluting entities into the mix. If they stuck with double cupping they would have done less damage to the environment.
The cardboard sleeve required new employees to make them, burning fossil fuel on the way to work, "new" materials to make them, burning more fossil fuels, new distribution systems burning ever more fossil fuels to distribute them and new recycling streams all using millions of gallons of fossil fuels all in the name of "recycling"!
Reusing cups is not a realistic option as most consumers would chose not to participate. The cups should be made out of 100% recycled material, no matter what color they end up being (Schultz insists on white). Of course a new stream of pollutants would be created, but if done right the effects could be minimal!
But this whole debate for Schultz and crew is just a ruse, corporate claptrap to make you think that they care, they do not. I have worked for these guys and they will never get, it is called greed!
What's the point of recycling a renewable resource?
We grow new trees to make paper. Don't see this as a big issue TBH. Do we fret about reducing bread consumption to "save wheat"? Why should we care about paper consumption to save trees? Lunacy.
hmmmm?
Your point is taken well, but your analagy is a bit off. We don't eat the cup we drink from as we eat the bread of the product it's made from. And if you take time to consider it all the way through, the cup that doesn't get recycled ends up in a pile on a mountain inside of a plastic bag that won't break down as the cup inside will. Even if a huge tractor runs over the piles of bags over and over, I've yet to see statistics that prove the effectiveness. On the other hand, the water that's used to clean your cup is going to a treatment plant.
Just Raise The Price Again
I'm sure they will come up with some clever solution and then they'll have to pay for it. So they'll issue a statement all about saving the trees and endit by saying they have no choice but to raise prices again
Will or can?
The question is not about can they be recycled it is about will they be even if they can be. Or is the will there on an individual level so if the can be will they be? If the will were there then people would carry around reusable cups. The only way to create the will is to tax cups 20 cents at point of coffee sale if they don't have reusable cups. Or they could drink it from the tap strait in the mouth!
Agreed, reuse rather than recycle.
When I go to Starbucks or Barnes and Noble (they serve Starbucks coffee), I always bring my own mug/container or ask for a glass mug. As noted from previous comments, this seems like a simple and green way of approaching this issue. I am wondering if there are any downsides to the use of glass/china in coffee shops/cafe's, such as chemicals from dishwashing detergent, amount of electricity/energy to clean and sterilize the cups, etc., that I might not be considering?
Reusable is usually better than recyclable.
Cheap china cups, a dishwasher or a set of sinks and a little storage space is all that $B needs to make this happen. I'd look at it as an upgrade. Make to-go cups cost more unless the customer brings his/her own.
Why not avoid the cup?
While this is nice for them to be doing wouldn't it be better to actually get customers to use reusable cups and plates in stores instead of using paper cups and bags?