This March, Seattle Public Utilities quietly rolled out an updated city-wide recycling plan with the type of efficiency critics rarely expect from government.  Billed as “Better Recycling”, the changes appease the vocal crescendo of recycle-maniacs who have been pushing for broader recycling options for years - and the top dogs in city hall who have set ambitious recycling goals.

The “better recycling” moniker is ambiguous, but the city has covered its bases.  Everything from more pick-up days, to job security, to recycling accessibility is resulting from the program.  But perhaps most interesting for us coffee-lovers is this: paper coffee cups are now recyclable.  There are a few caveats; cups that are too dirty might still be sorted for the landfill, and foam covered cups don’t make the grade.  Nonetheless, this rocked our world at SIS.  New recycling options have the potential to alleviate tons of residential and commercial waste, and advocacy groups (us included) can heave a sigh of relief knowing the city can “walk the walk”.  So does this mean we can close the books on the coffee cup issue? Or would a celebratory Irish coffee be premature?

 

Blue Skies for Eco-Coffee Drinkers

Seattle’s recycling progress should put smiles on java drinkers throughout the world’s coffee capital.  The new coffee cup rule makes recycling more convenient and accessible.  Seattleites seem prone to recycle on instinct, so tossing a cup into the right bin shouldn’t be a hard habit to change.   And public recycling receptacles are already abundant throughout most of the metro area.  It’s too early to predict any impact in quantitative terms, but past successes in Seattle are promising.  In the first year of the big composting push, Seattleites remembered to toss 80,000 tons of food and yard waste into their compost bins.  The common paper cup could very well be the summer-blockbuster sequel.

Of course, municipal reinforcements are always welcomed by environmental non-profits and advocacy groups.  Recycling centers which can handle the complex materials of a disposable coffee cup come with a big price tag.  Amidst tight budgets and a shaky economy, it’s fortunate that the upgrade wasn’t axed.

The new rules could have a big impact on long-term plans for eco-regulations too.  It’s tough to enforce recycling when options are limited.  But now that the city has stepped up to the plate, it’ll be possible to coerce those who create excessive trash to change their habits  And if the city is to hit its goal of diverting 60% of its waste to recycling and composting, this may happen soon.

 

Prevalient Clouds Still Abound

Despite the many benefits, environmentalists should be cautious not to succumb to hubris.  As far as waste solutions go, broad recycling is a proven weapon.  But conservationists cringe when “recycling” becomes the default solution to municipal environmental issues.  Sure, disposable paper cups create landfill waste, and that’s not good.  But what about trees, water, energy, petroleum, and other scarce resources gobbled up by cup production?  Because of the extra resources consumed in the pick-up and recycling process, disposable coffee cups being recycled can claim even more energy than before!  Unless new recycling trucks and sorting centers run on alternative energy, ecoists miss a flawless victory.

This solution also neglects to conserve one important resource in particular – money.  Recycling, although eco-friendly and popular, does come with a cost.  The city has to pay for the state-of-the-art recycling center, businesses must pay for recycling services, and coffee houses still have to pay for their disposable cups.  A recent Wall Street Journal article cited a coffee shop owner in Pennsylvania who lost 40 cents per cup in costs. Comparably, promoting reusable coffee cups as a solution saves money for everyone.  When it comes to a solution that’s friendly to both the financial and environmental bottom lines, recycling may take second place.

Could Seattle’s programs and commitment to recycling serve as the paragon for other municipalities?  It would be an environmentalists dream to see every town and city embrace recycling like Seattle, but the reality is less rosy.  Retrofitting a typical recycling center to process disposable coffee cups is costly and out of reach for most cities.  And even though Seattle pushed these new recycling investments through the budget process, other municipalities may not be so lucky.  I recently visited Lawrence, Kansas to speak with a campus group advocating for glass recycling in bars.  The biggest obstacle they face is that glass recycling isn’t yet available.  Chances are, spending money to recycle coffee cups is low on their priority list.

Even within the coffee capital, the new recycling solution misses a few targets.  Broad recycling may be available, but there’s no guarantee that landlords will provide such amenities to commercial tenants.  As Jim Hanna, Environmental Director for Starbucks pointed out in an SIS interview last year:

“Here in Seattle, where commercial recycling is generally available, we [Starbucks] often lease our store spaces from landlords; which may or may not provide us with recycling options… it’s important to understand that setting up recycling is subject to a lot more variables than just putting some bins out front.”

It isn’t just the torpor landlords putting up obstacles.  Large Seattle institutions like the University of Washington find themselves left out of the celebratory recycling hubbub. An article titled “New City Recycling Program Not Instituted at UW” notes that contracts with disparate waste management companies are the root cause of UW evading the new rules.  This quirky irregularity takes a more serious tone when it’s realized the campus burns through 5000 disposable cups a day. 

So…what about that Irish coffee?

Bottom line, this is a major achievement for environmental movers, the city of Seattle, and coffee lovers.  New recycling rules will undoubtedly lessen the amount of garbage from disposable drink containers.  But only the most credulous of coffee drinkers should believe that the new regulations will close the case on paper cup’s environmental footprint.  Conservation takes a back seat when recycling is driving progress, which does no good in protecting our natural resources. 

Ultimately, it’s still the responsibility of coffee drinkers and the coffee business to actually do something about paper cups.  Whether that means putting in the elbow grease to institute recycling or promoting and using reusable coffee cups, the city government can only do so much.  

 

Tags: activist, Better, BYOC, coffee, coffee house, compost, Conservation, Cost, cups, disposable, eco, ecoist, Expense, garbage, goals, Greg Nickels, is, java, Litter, Management, Mayor, paper, Public, recycle manicas, Recycling, Recyleable, reusable, Seattle, sexy, successful, sustainability, Trash, triple bottom line, Utilities, waste, waste reduction

For close to two years, this group has been declaring that sustainability is sexy.  Unfortunately, our website was not.  With Earth Day is just around the corner, our team decided some serious house cleaning was in order.  The end result?   A 3 minute video titled “What’s So Great About Reusable Coffee Cups?“.

Besides the new powerpoint show, our online store has been updated as well.  We finally caught up to 1999 and added a shopping cart system, so cups can be ordered online.  FYI, all shipping fees, taxes, and other nickle ‘n dime charges are included in the listed price.  If you’re looking for an eco-friendly, well made, and sustainably sexy coffee cup - then we have it!

A Quick Note: Last week I was invited to be a guest speaker during an Earth Day event hosted by a group of students at the University of Kansas.  The group - Students for Bar Recycling - is making some amazing progress on instituting a serious recycling program in their city.  I’m still putting my notes and thoughts together, but a re-cap will be coming shortly.

Tags: buy, coffee, corn plastic, cups, earth day, eco, environmental, find, friendly, KU, order, powerpoint, reusable, slide show, students for bar recycling, sustainability, video

They say half of all new businesses fail within the first year.  They also say half of those remaining fail within the second year.  By the third year, any business owner still around undoubtedly knows how to play the game.

It’s easy to tell if a coffee house is run by one of these vetted business intellects.  The tell tale signs are visible almost immediately upon entering the store; ceramic mugs by the espresso machine, or signs urging customers to bring their own coffee cup by the register.  By the time I pay for a coffee, the message is clear –this coffee shop thinks disposable cups are bad for business.  Being a thrifty consumer, that small discount I earn when I BYOC always puts a smile on my face.  But the smile of the coffee shop owner must be in a class all of its own.  Thanks for the discount, I think to myself.  No, thank you, the coffee shop owner chuckles back.

How are disposable cups bad for business?  Truth be told, it’s all because of the bottom line.  Disposable cups cost money, and high overhead costs can be fatal to a business.  Even more so, offering disposable cups does nothing to enhance customer appreciation, nor does it help a coffee house attract new customers.  The coffee industry is already oversaturated with competition – and it’s becoming more important to stand out from the crowd.

These conclusions are illustrated in a study published by Starbucks and the Environmental Defense Fund.  The two organizations teamed up in April of 2000 to develop a set of strategies to reduce the environmental impact of serving coffee.   In so doing, the group also found that reducing their environmental impact contributed toward better finances in three specific ways:

First, let’s examine the claim that the supporting reusable cups saves coffee houses money. At its heart, it’s a logical claim.  After all, when customers BYOC, coffee houses don’t have to pay to purchase disposable cups.  This might seem like small savings, but the table below (reproduced from the Starbucks/EDF report) illustrates just how quickly it can add up:

Researchers concluded that Starbucks could save hundreds of dollars a day just by offering reusable coffee cups.  Depending on the size of a coffee house’s customer base, the potential savings are impressive.

The second claim - that reusable cups increase customer satisfaction - originates from market research studies published in the same Starbucks/EDF report.  Researchers found that 82% of customers surveyed favored reusable coffee cups.  These customer noted that reusable cups “insulated coffee well, were attractive, and prevented waste” - all very good reasons.  59% of those surveyed cited environmental concerns as their primary reason for supporting reusable coffee cups.  Interestingly, this survey took place in 2000, before global warming became a main-stream issue in the public eye.  Chances are that even more customers favor reusable coffee cups in a “post-An Inconvenient Truth” world.

The final claim is that reusable cups can help a coffee business develop an identity to which customers can relate.  Marketing people call this “developing brand equity”.  Customers may think, I can buy my coffee anywhere, so why should I buy it at this coffee house?  The answer is in a company’s brand.  For example, drinking a Starbucks coffee has always been more than just coffee.  Beginning in the 90’s, that white cup and green logo became part of an image, even part of a lifestyle.  Right now, McDonald’s is working to brand its new espresso products as the antithesis of Starbucks.  Billboards that state “Espresso served cold, not snobby” are hoping to capitalize on consumers who like their espresso, but don’t identify with the Starbucks image.

So how do reusable cups factor into positive brand equity?  Remember that more than half of surveyed coffee drinkers care about the environment, and those same coffee drinkers are looking for businesses with which they can identify.  A coffee house which displays support for reusable coffee cups is also branding itself as an environmentally aware and socially conscious business - something which is important to more than half of all coffee drinkers!

Regardless of the environmental implications, it’s hard to ignore the positive financial benefits reusable coffee cups offer.  Sustainability Is Sexy offers programs which help businesses transform the potential of reusable coffee cups into real results.  More information about these programs can be found at www.SustainabilityIsSexy.com/Join.html.

To steal from conventional investing wisdom – why should a business work to pay for coffee cups, when those coffee cups could be working to pay the business?

Tags: brand development, brand equity, branding, BYOC, coffee, coffee house, cup, cup discount, customer, customer loyalty, disposable, eco, eco business, environment, Environmental Defense Fund, environmentally friendly, espresso, finance, house, McDonalds, operating, overhead costs, reusable, saving money, smart business, Starbucks, sustainability is sexy

While cruising the internet, I found a fantastic video on disposable paper cups. The clip is about 90 seconds long, and was made by a group of students at the University of Washington. Besides the collection of great pictures and impressive facts, the message is important - that using your own coffee cup can have an astounding environmental impact. It’s worth watching.

To those familiar with Sustainability Is Sexy, the message will be familiar. The video does; however, point out one interesting fact that SIS hasn’t touched - There are no recycling bins in Starbucks stores.

Why is this? After all, Starbucks is headquartered in Seattle, a caldera of eco-awareness. And the Emerald City doesn’t just talk the talk when it comes to the environment. According to Sustainable Industries, Seattle broke records in 2006 when nearly 50% of it’s collected waste went to recycling plants. The city did it again in 2008, when Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels banned plastic water bottles from city events, and proposed a fee on all paper and plastic grocery bags (a first in the nation, according to the Seattle Times).

However, it’s doubtful that Starbucks suffers from evil corporation syndrome. In fact, the answer may lie more in the realm of common sense. Most of the garbage produced by Starbucks is in the form of disposable coffee cups - and those cups can’t be recycled. The 2.3 billion “to-go” cups used by Starbucks every year are made from paper and covered with a thin plastic coating during the manufacturing process. SIS research shows the polyethylene plastic keeps liquids from leaking - but also renders the cup unrecycleable.

Not to say that Starbucks isn’t a purveyor of the problem. Twenty years ago, a stop into a coffee house was a rare part of morning routines. It was the Starbucks expansion in the 1990’s that led to the coffee culture phenomenon. And that phenomenon led to the prevelance of disposable coffee cups. Today, there’s not only a Starbucks on every corner, but a disposable cup in every coffee drinker’s hand.

So what can be done about the 2.3 billion cups that land in our nation’s dumps every year? Some environmentalists advocate that Starbucks should do more to make a recycle friendly cup. According to an article in the Columbus Dispatch, a manager of materials and engineer at SOLO Cup believes Starbucks isn’t doing all the can. “It’s all about the money; the question is whether they would be willing to pay for it”. Others advocate for a the coffee giant to make compostable cups, as does it’s regional rival, Tully’s Coffee.

However, both of these band-aid solutions avoid the real problem at hand - that our caffeine habits have become reliant on disposables. In the end, it’s up to the consumer. As an eco-friendly coffee drinker, you have the option to use your own reusable mug every day. Bring it! You’re efforts will save trees and energy, and reduce landfill garbage. If every coffee drinker used their own cup, there would be no need for recycle friendly disposables.

Who knows, maybe one day we could even rid Starbucks of the need for garbage cans too.

Tags: coffee, coffee culture, compostable, cups, disposable, Recycle, reusable, Seattle, Starbucks