The cup you are looking at may be slowly disappearing
The white paper cups with the green Starbucks siren (as shown) Starbucks calls her) may eventually be a thing of the past. Or so the headlines would have us believe. CNN reportsStarbucks is working with customers to make it possible for them to bring their own cups by 2025. Starbucks wants to reduce the use of paper cups and, as a stretch goal to eliminate them entirely, they hope to remind customers to bring their own cups.
Starbucks won’t be removing its plastic and paper cups any time soon, just to be clear. Instead, Starbucks wants to make disposable cups. Less ideal optionsCustomers. The goal is for customers to bring their own drink containers to every Starbucks in the U.S.A. and Canada by next year.
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Starbucks will likely need to use a multi-faceted approach to achieve this. Starbucks has already tried a pilot program called “borrow-a-cup”. SeattleCustomers paid $1 per cup deposit. Customers would receive the $1 deposit back if they returned the cup to the special bin at each Starbucks location. They also earn rewards.
The lightweight polypropylene cups are recyclable and can be reused, unlike regular Starbucks paper cups. In case you were wondering, the Seattle Starbucks employees did not have to wash all the borrowed cups. Instead, a third-party vendor picked up the cups, washed them and returned them.
Customers in Seattle were open-minded to the borrow a cup idea. One manager at one of the testing locations stated that customers often asked about the drop off bin for the reusable cup. This helped to increase interest in the program.
The borrow-a-cup program is still being tested for kinks. However, the chain has revived a program that allows customers to bring their own mugs into stores. This was a program that was suspended during the heights of the pandemic for safety and health reasons. Starbucks usually takes 10 cents off your order if you bring your own mug. However, to encourage the use-of-your-mug model, the cashier will now take 50c off those orders. The company is also testing a disposable cup fee.
This raises the issue of whether people can use their own cups in the drive-thru window or when they order on the mobile app. Starbucks has mock stores to test different scenarios, including having customers hand their cups over at the drive-thru window, or presenting the cup at an earlier stage in the ordering process to save time.
I am not usually a cynic but you know how stubborn people can be when it comes to making changes, no matter how small. There are many moving parts. Starbucks can make it more attractive and easier for customers not to bring their own cups, but customers are responsible for following the policy.
There are also a lot of little problems that could arise. What happens if a customer brings in an unwashed cup? Do they wash it for the customer, adding extra time, and then fill the order? Is it possible for the customer to return the mug if they give the wrong order to the employee? The big question is: Are you going to take a mug or thermos with you to Starbucks after a busy day of running errands? You probably won’t, so you might just decide to pay the disposable cup fee, and increase Starbucks profits.
These are all complex logistics. Starbucks is all about convenience and speed, so any attempt to make the model more sustainable could result in customers being disappointed. It is a good idea to reduce waste but I feel it will take a long time to get customers to sign up for these programs. I can already imagine the complaints employees will have about all this.
