The winner of a competition sponsored by Starbucks to gather ideas for reducing non-recyclable paper cup use isn’t even a cup at all, but a concept for encouraging customers to bring their own cups for possible free drinks.
The top four winners of their contest are all excellent ideas to reduce paper consumption, but only one was a reusable or biodegradable cup.
“We’re very interested in looking at the winning ideas and many of the other submitted ideas as we develop new solutions to reduce cup waste,” said Elise Chisholm, Starbucks spokesperson. “We haven’t yet had a chance to determine specific action plans. Increasing adoption of reusable cups – including travel tumblers and our own ceramic serveware – is definitely an important part of the equation for us.”
The Betacup competition offered a total of $20,000 for ideas that could eliminate paper cup consumption. Starbucks sponsored it as part of its efforts to only offer reusable or recyclable cups by 2015.
The winning idea was the Karma Cup, a simple concept for putting a chalkboard by the register at a coffee shop, having customers that use reusable cups make a mark on the board, and then giving a free coffee to every 10th customer that uses a reusable. This is a fun and creative idea – but be sure to move back toward the end of the line once you see the 10th person get their reward.
The three honorable mentions were:
1) Band of Honor
This novel idea revolves around a rubber band with a barcode on it that a customer can put on any reusable cup and have scanned every time they use it, getting larger discounts the more they reuse it.
2) Champion Cup
Similar to the Band of Honor, is a platform in which customers tag their mugs, register them online, get rewards for reusing them and track how many cups they’ve saved,
3) Reusable & Biodegradable Cup Contest
Probably the biggest no-brainer of the contest, any reusable or biodegradable cup would save on paper waste. This particular cup would be made from rice husks that has a sleeve with an RFID tag that can be scanned for tracking cup use and receiving discounts.
Unless Starbucks stops offering drinks in disposable cups completely, millions of tons of paper waste will continue to be created. Robert Piller, President of EcoMarketingSolutions.com, says, “Reusable and biodegradable coffee mugs would clearly be the easiest to get into their stores, as they are readily available. We currently offer dozens of reusable and biodegradable coffee mugs that Starbucks could offer with their logo – along witht heir ten cent per cup discount for each use.”
According to GreenBiz.com, recycling has been a sticking point in Starbucks’ environmental efforts. In its 2009 Global Responsibility Report, it stamped “Needs Improvement” on its three recycling goals of developing a recyclable cup by 2012, setting up front-of-store recycling in company-owned stores by 2015 and serving a quarter of beverages in reusable cups by 2015.
In April, Starbucks hosted its second cup summit, bringing together municipalities, suppliers, manufacturers, recyclers, NGOs and more to develop solutions for making paper and plastic cups more widely recyclable. Earlier that month, on April 15, Starbucks ran a promotion giving a free coffee to anyone who brought in a reusable mug to use.
Kudos to Starbucks for acknowledging their problem and working to improve sustainability.
McDonalds & Dunkin Donuts, you’re next. What will you do to raise the bar in order to reduce waste and improve reuse?
Let’s Make Earth Day, Every Day.
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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.
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