Encouraging Use of Reusable Coffee Cups and Reducing Single Use Disposable Coffee Cups

In 2016, Recycling Advocates kicked off a campaign focused on reducing the number of disposable, single use coffee cups going into area landfills. I helped kick off and lead the campaign for 5 years as President of the Oregon-based nonprofit organization (now called Waste-Free Advocates). After COVID-19 struck, the campaign lost momentum when reusable cups were not allowed in coffee shops.

I wanted to save the content from our campaign page, so below are key articles and content from the campaign.

Our campaign slogan is “BYOC!” which stands for Bring Your Own Cup. This campaign will be a multi-year initiative for us, until we create a change in behavior within the Portland metro region, where disposable coffee cups are no longer the standard method for drinking coffee.

Why did we select this campaign?

Portlanders LOVE their coffee!
Disposable coffee cups are NOT recyclable!
EACH disposable coffee cup is responsible for 0.24 lbs of carbon (C02) greenhouse gas emissions
The environmental IMPACT of disposable coffee cups is enormous!

Did you know?

Paper cups are not recyclable because of the plastic liner and coffee contamination.

Garbage haulers do not accept plastic lids in curbside recycling bins.

Cardboard sleeves can be recycled and reused, but often are not.

The vast majority of disposable cups and lids sold at coffee shops eventually arrive at the landfill.
You can bring your own reusable coffee cup and give it to the barista to fill up your coffee (both hot and cold). Learn more about the laws around reusable containers >>>

Only 1-2% of Starbucks customers bring their own cup, even with a 10 cent discount incentive.³
Starbucks estimated the cost of disposable packaging (coffee cup, lid, and insulating sleeve) at 15 cents back in 2000.¹

How big is this problem?

If an individual purchases a disposable cup every day, this creates about 23 pounds of waste per year.

According to a study by Starbucks, each paper cup manufactured is responsible for 0.24 pounds of CO2 emissions.¹
Recycling Advocates estimates that 50 MILLION disposable coffee cups are used in the Metro area per year. This equates to 3 MILLION pounds of solid waste being generated and 6,000 metric tons of CO2 being generated. This is equivalent to almost 600,000 gallons of gas consumed, or 6 million pounds of coal burned for one year.²

What can you do to help our campaign?

Volunteer to table at an event, to educate consumers about the lack of recycling options, and the magnitude of the problem
Promote our campaign to your friends and family through social media using “#BYOC” or through word of mouth.
Encourage your local coffee shop to get involved with our campaign by incentivizing or encouraging their customers to avoid disposable coffee cups.
Bring your own cup, or use a reusable mug in the store when you go to a coffee shop. Check out other Portland residents who already bring their own cup!
Live or work in Portland? Check out the “Reduce, Reuse, Recaffeinate Plus” punch card program conducted every April to win prizes for bringing your own cup or bottle, reusing your bags, or having a waste-free lunch!

What are we encouraging coffee shops to do to support this campaign?

Offer an incentive for customers who bring their own reusable cup.
- Financial incentives are typically 10 or 25 cents in the Portland area. This can be a discount, an additional tax for those who use disposable cups (also a report from Clear Water Fund and success from Nossa Familia), or donation to a charity.
- Offer a prize or larger incentive for multiple uses of their reusable cup (punch card for free coffee, or prize giveaways each month).
Offer reusable cups for dining in.
- If reusable cups are available, ask customers if they want their coffee “for here or to go”
  - Use of reusables increased from an average of 18% to 57% during the pilot test when customers were asked this question.¹
Place a reminder sign where customers order or near the entrance, to remind them to bring their reusable cup.
Sell reusable cups in your store, to make it easy for customers to obtain reusable cups if they don’t own one.
Provide educational materials and information about disposable cups to customers
- Examples include table tents, email to newsletters, posts to social media, signs and posters on the wall, allow our handouts and materials to be displayed in the shop, etc.

Why don’t we focus on Starbucks, since they are so large?

Starbucks has actually done quite a few things to improve their impact on the environment. They offer in-store cups for use (when you ask), sell reusable cups, and offer a 10 cent discount when you bring your own. However, I think this statement from their website summarizes the need for individuals to drive this campaign through their behavior change. Update in 2022: Starbucks is planning to phase out its iconic cups

We will continue to explore new ways to reduce our cup waste but ultimately it will be our customers who control whether or not we achieve continued growth in the number of beverages served in reusable cups.
Starbucks website

In 2019, GO Box launched a new reusable coffee cup program in Portland! Check them out at Nossa Familia and New Seasons!

Listen to the presentation from Nossa Familia about charging customers for to-go coffee cups! [Read full transcript]

Help spread the word! Post signs at your work break areas and cafeterias

Coffee Cup Reduction Campaign (PDF)
Need other sizes and versions? Contact us!

Campaign alignment with other larger initiatives

UN Sustainable Development Goals
- Goal 12 – Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns
- Goal 13 – Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
- Goal 15 – Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss
Multnomah County Climate Action Plan
- Objective 10 – Reduce per capita solid waste by 33% by 2030

Related Videos

Kaffeeform

https://mashable.com/videos/blueprint:dbl3agWx03/embed/?player=offsite

Australia

Related Articles and Websites

Starbucks launches ‘Borrow A Cup’ trial with reusable cups for Earth Month. Here’s how it works (USA Today, 4/5/21)
Green Groups Hope for Return of Reusable Coffee Cups (WhoWhatWhy, 1/28/21)
McDonald’s Announces Industry-First Partnership with Zero-Waste Platform Loop to Pilot Reusable Packaging (McDonalds, 9/9/20)
Introducing Starbucks Circular Cup – A Reusable Cup, Made From Recycled Coffee Cups (Starbucks, 8/20/20)
Starbucks is Ready to Reintroduce Reusables across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (Starbucks, 8/7/20)
Two paper mills begin accepting plastic-lined cups (Resource Recycling, 9/15/20)
What is the future of BYOC post-COVID? Portland Coffee Shops Speak Out (Recycling Advocates, 5/9/20)
Waves of U.S.-Based Cafés Place Temporary Bans on Personal Cups – Barista Magazine Online (Barista, 3/16/20)
Plastic pollution, reuse and COVID-19 (Upstream Solutions, 3/17/20)
Starbucks is testing a new cup. Here’s what’s different (CNN, 3/9/20)
McDonald’s & Starbucks Piloting Reusable Cup Program in California (DieLine, 2/19/20)
East Village (Des Moines, IA) coffee shop plans to eliminate to-go cups in favor of reusable mugs (Des Moines Register, 1/2/20)
Nossa Coffee “To-Go” Cup Upcharge (OPB, 6/26/19)
Starbucks, Dunkin’ further sustainable cup initiatives (Restaurant Dive, 6/11/19)
Starbucks Bets London Airport Can Crack the Reusable Cup Code (Bloomberg, 6/9/19)
Production of recycling-friendly paper liner scales up (Resource Recycling, 5/7/19)
This Portland Coffee Brand Is Creating Zero Waste Cafes through To-Go Cup Charges (4/30/19)
Starbucks, Dunkin Race Against Bans, Taxes on Disposable Cups (4/28/19)
Nossa Familia to Charge 25 Cents For To-Go Cups At All Cafe Locations (4/19/19)
Will one of these 12 visions replace today’s throwaway coffee cup? (GreenBiz, 3/7/19)
A Giant Leap Toward Throw-Away-Free Living – About Berkeley Disposables Ordinance (Upstream Podcast, 2/20/19)
Berkeley imposes city-wide disposable cup fee (Restaurant & Café, 1/25/19)
Why You’re Still Not Bringing a Reusable Mug For Your Daily Coffee (Sightline, 1/4/19)
UK Coffee cups could get cigarette-style plastic warnings (Metro, 11/7/18)
An option if you can’t stop using K-cups
Free Boulder Colorado mug-share program wants to replace paper coffee cups (Restaurant Dive, 11/16/18)
It Took Only 2 Hours for This Year’s Starbucks Holiday Cups to Cause Controversy (The Points Guy, 11/6/18)
Fiber stakeholders offer details on cup-to-cup recycling effort (Resource Recycling, 11/6/18)
New York coffee shop fined $300 by Sanitation Department for sign announcing how many cups they’ve kept out of landfill (Fox News, 10/26/18)
Colorado MRF to sort single-use coffee cups (Resource Recycling, 9/25/18)
We won’t save the Earth with a better kind of disposable coffee cup (The Guardian, 9/6/18)
What Munich’s coffee houses learned about waste from beer culture (PRI, 8/14/18)
Berkeley Proposes Tax on Disposable Food Containers (US News, 4/25/18)
Decline in plastic bags on seabed suggests measures to tackle waste are working (Independent, 4/4/2018)
Starbucks to Committ $10M to Recyclable, Compostable Cups (QSR, 3/20/18)
The environmental impact of paper, polystyrene and ceramic cups throughout their lifetime (Carbon Clear)
Britain Considers a ‘Latte Levy’ to Cut the Use of Coffee Cups (New York Times, 1/15/18)
Germany has come up with the best solution to single-use coffee cups (World Economic Forum, 12/6/17)
Wake up to a 5p tax on your coffee cup to boost recycling (The London Times, 11/1/17)
Four solutions to the disposable coffee cup problem (BBC News, 10/11/17)
How to successfully implement a bring your own mug (BYOM) habit (The Little Black Coffee Cup)
For here or to go, and a few other questions (The Little Black Coffee Cup)
Don’t Put a Lid On It Campaign (Behance, 12/10/16)
A shot at coffee cup recycling in Australia (Eco-Business, 11/25/16)
Starbucks should worry about recyclability, not pretty holiday designs (Treehuggers, 11/11/16)
Coffee Cup Revolution coffee cup deposit event in Vancouver (BC) (Binners Project, 10/24/16)
Manchester (UK) launches paper coffee cup recycling campaign (BBC, 10/12/16)
2016 Starbucks Better Cup campaign from Stand (8/7/16)
Starbucks Cups Destroy Forests: 8000+ Paper Cups a Minute Used Once & Trashed (Huff Post, 7/11/16)
Recycling tip – the White Paper Cup (SE Examiner, 5/31/16)
Keurig’s New K-Cup Coffee Is Recyclable, But Hardly Green (NY Times, 4/15/16)
Starbucks offers discount to customers who bring their own coffee cup in campaign win (Telegraph, 3/19/16)
Government has ‘no plans’ to tax coffee cups (BBC, 3/18/16)
Why You’re Still Not Bringing A Reusable Mug For Your Daily Coffee (Sightline, 3/8/16)
Vancouver Considering Ban on Disposable Coffee Cups, Plastic Bags (CBC News, 2/5/16)
World’s first biodegradable coffee cup that grows flowers and trees when thrown away! (Healthy Holistic Living, 4/4/15)
LA coffee house invents the best edible coffee cups in the whole wide world (Metro, 9/9/14)
A Brief History of the Disposable Coffee Cup (Bon Appetit, 5/30/14)
If We’re Sharing Everything Else, Why Not Our Coffee Cups? (Fast Company, 4/25/14)
Reduce Reuse Recaffeinate City of Portland campaign
Strings of Cup Display (Wooster Colllege Sustainability, 4/12/13)
2012 De-cup Your Decaf – Pledge to use 5 less disposable coffee cups each week
2010 Beta Cup campaign – Organization to find the best ideas to eliminate paper cup consumption
2010 Carry Your Cup campaign – Pledge to use non-disposable cups for a given amount of time
Disposable Coffee Cup Waste Reduction Study (Hanna Ziada, McMaster University, Dec 2009) – Study identifying three behavior changes: a prompt, a sign and an available alternative.
The Basic Problem with Coffee Cups (Aug 2009)
Studying the effect of price signals on disposable hot beverage cup consumption (Laur E Fisher, Tufts University, Thesis Paper, 2008)

Alternative Options for Disposable Coffee Cups

A project to help eliminate paper cup waste in London – A new, chai wallah-inspired project, Cup Club, which aims to reduce the amount of waste caused by disposable coffee cups in London.

https://embed-ssl.ted.com/talks/chris_jordan_pictures_some_shocking_stats.html

Turning powerful stats into art – Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics — like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day.

https://player.vimeo.com/video/130058572

The World’s First Plantable Coffee Cup

Do other cities have coffee cup recycling options?

+ Seattle

All food service businesses in Seattle using compostable or recyclable service products for food consumed on the premises are required to provide bins for proper collection of these materials.
Cedar Grove Commercially Acceptable Compostable Items – Coffee cups, sleeves and lids

+ San Francisco