If recycling facilities try to recycle paper cups without separating out materials first, the plastic lining is likely to jam up their machines. Many recyclers find that process to be more trouble than it’s worth. Most facilities don’t recycle paper cups because to do so, they would have to separate the cups’ plastic lining from the paper. Redesigning a paper cup, much less actually making it compostable or recyclable, is a tall order.Īnd while technically, Starbucks’ cups can be recycled under the right circumstances, they usually are not. Again and again, it has made incremental changes but hasn’t found the holy grail - a truly recyclable cup. It’s made sweeping commitments, and walked them back, and reset them. Starbucks has held innovation contests, worked with rivals and suppliers, and even enlisted the help of MIT academics. Starbucks says the contest is one part of its broader search for a solution. Ideas poured in, and on Wednesday, 12 winners were announced. Together, the competitors and Closed Loop Partners, a recycling-focused investor group, crowdsourced solutions from the public. McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Wendy’s, Nestlé and Yum! Brands (which owns KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut) all came on board. Last year, Starbucks committed to the NextGen Cup Challenge, teaming up with other food companies for help. Over the past three decades, Starbucks has come at the cup problem from every angle. If a similar backlash were to happen to the single-use coffee cup, which is lined with plastic and not recyclable in most places, the company would suddenly have a big problem on its hands. Starbucks used 3.85 billion paper cups for hot beverages in 2017 alone. After all, it took just one YouTube video and a statistic sourced to a 9-year-old boy to turn public opinion against plastic straws. As long as they make customers feel good, they’re a big asset to the company.īut those cups could also be a liability for Starbucks. They’re a canvas for the Starbucks logo, for your order, your name and for cheerful graphics that signal the holidays are here. It was a remarkably quick fix, considering the company has spent 30 years trying to come up with a greener alternative to another object: its iconic paper cup.Ĭups are Starbucks’ billboard. By 2020, Starbucks said, it will eliminate single-use plastic straws at its more than 29,800 locations around the world.
The company redesigned its cold cup lids so they won’t require a straw at all. When plastic straws became a symbol of environmental destruction, Starbucks swiftly came up with a plan: Get rid of them. A Starbucks coffee cup floats on the surface of the East River.
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