SEATTLE, WA — Starbucks has completed a test showing its ubiquitous coffee cups can be recycled into new cups, and although only one facility can currently make that happen, Starbucks hopes this and other tests push more recyclers to accept trashed cups.
Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) wants to provide only recyclable or reusable cups by 2015, and has run various recycling projects to see what its cups can be turned into. "For paper to be a valuable, marketable product, generally you have to find regionally-relevant solutions," said Jim Hanna, Starbucks' director of environmental impact.
The recent six-week project took about 8,000 pounds of cups collected in Ontario, where Starbucks already recycles cups and other materials, and sent them to Mississippi River Pulp, the company that provides the post-consumer content that's been in Starbucks' cups since 2006. All of the companies' cups, including the new ones made partially with old cups, have 10 percent recycled content.
Mississippi River Pulp is the only company that can provide pulp for products that will come into contact with food or drinks, because its the only one to have gotten the OK from the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA doesn't approve companies and their processes, per se, but it basically says it has no objections. Mississippi River sends the pulp to various paper product companies, including International Paper and others that make Starbucks' cups.
Starbucks has pumped plenty of time and effort into getting paper cups viewed as something worth recycling. It's hosted two cup summits to bring together all of the relevant paper and recycling players, and conducted other recycling tests around the country. It also sponsored a contest seeking ways to reduce the number of non-recyclable cups leaving its stores, which resulted in a number of submissions for how to encourage customers to choose reusable cups.
Only a small fraction of the 4 billion cups Starbucks produces a year end up somewhere other than a landfill. There's recycling in Toronto and Seattle, and composting in San Francisco. The cups go in the trash everywhere else.
Starbucks is wrapping up a test in New York City that collected cups with corrugated cardboard to be turned into pulp for use in paper towels, and next year it's planning to try turning cups from Chicago into napkins for its stores, as well as expand its cup-to-cup recycling process to a major U.S. city.
The various Starbucks programs and other tests have shown that recyclers can separate the plastic lining from coffee cups and that food contamination can be filtered out, two of the biggest concerns from recyclers.
"Now it's just a matter of showing the recycling industry that with existing technology they can invest in, they can sort cups out," Hanna said. Optical scanners that filter out milk and juice paper cartons, for example, can also sort out coated cups, he said.
Getting more recyclers to take coated cups would not only mean a better end-of-life solution for Starbucks cups, but for the 58 billion other paper cups used every year throughout the U.S. in restaurants, homes and elsewhere.
"With any commodity that is not currently readily accepted by the recycling industry, we believe our job is to prove there is significant value in this product," Hanna said.
Starbucks cups - CC license by Flickr user Plutor
Anyone who has read Cradle to
Anyone who has read Cradle to Cradle knows that 'recycled' items are not necessarily a good thing anyway (see comment above about cancer too).
What I don't understand is, there is already a cup that can easily be made back into a cup again - why aren't they using china or porcelain cups in store and simply washing them in energy and water efficient dishwashers??
I applaud SB for their
I applaud SB for their efforts. They are not only the FIRST and ONLY company using FDA approved 10%+ post-consumer materials in their cups, but they look for ways to make all of their processes more environmentally sustainable. It's not their fault that consumers are too lazy to recycle their own cups and choose to continuously fill our landfills. As for companies like D&D, styrofome...really?!?
Keep going SB!
I never go to SB because
I never go to SB because their coffee is terrible and overpriced, but am I the only one who just assumed Starbucks was ALREADY doing this - i.e., using recycled paper products, using cups that can be recycled?
Given the vast (and somewhat inexplicable) consumption of their product over the past however many years, I'm appalled that the company is just now exploring the most basic of sustainable practices: using recycled/recyclable goods.
For shame on you, Starbucks.
I wonder why you or anyone
I wonder why you or anyone would assume that Starbucks or anyone would be recycling? Furthermore, I find it puzzling that you would lambast Starbucks for not being sustainable without concurrently stating that you yourself are indeed practicing what you preach by using your own reusable coffee mug, plate, reusable doggy bag or utensils whenever you get takeout. Easy to criticize others, but you know what? Sustainability begins at home.
Are they trying to make some
Are they trying to make some sort of "green" statement with these antics??? You people are ridiculous. Any coffee shop franchise that cannot sell anything but "bold" coffee does not deserve to call themselves a coffee shop.
The plastic lining inside their cups will give you cancer, recycled or not. Yum.