Starbucks plans to discontinue single-use cups

Personal reusable cups to become the preferred alternative.

By the end of next year, customers will be able to use their own personal reusable cup for every Starbucks visit in the U.S. and Canada – including in café, drive-thru and mobile order and pay.

The coffee chain giant, in a video, explained how customers can get their fill every morning using their cups.

This move is in line with the coffee chain’s vision to help reach the company’s goal of reducing waste by 50 per cent by 2030.

“Starbucks is shifting away from single-use plastics and piloting reusable cup programs in six markets around the world,” said the brand on its website.

“Our goal, by 2025, is to create a cultural movement towards reusables by giving customers easy access to a personal or Starbucks provided reusable to-go cup for every visit, making it convenient and delightful to reuse wherever customers are enjoying their Starbucks Experience.”

To help make reusables convenient for customers, Starbucks is testing multiple reusable programs and operating models:

• Borrow A Cup: Customers order their drink in a designated Starbucks reusable cup, designed to be returned to stores, professionally cleaned, and reused by other Starbucks customers. This was previously tested in Seattle last year and Starbucks currently has live pilots in Japan, Singapore and London. Each program is intentionally different (even the name!) to help find the best possible operational model globally.

• 100 per cent Reusable Operating Models: In this program, single-use cups are eliminated entirely, in favour of reusables, personal cups or for-here-ware. Starbucks tested this at four stores in Jeju, South Korea and recently expanded this to an additional 12 stores in Seoul. The test in Jeju diverted an estimated 200,000 disposable cups from landfills in the first three months.

• Personal Cups & For-Here-Ware: Encouraging customers to bring their own cup and emphasizing Starbucks provided for-here-ware as the default sit-and-stay experience. Starbucks is testing a 100 per cent for-here-ware program at its experiential Greener Store in Shanghai.