UPDATE 21 March 2018: Starbucks just announced it will commit $10 million in a partnership to bring a fully recyclable and compostable cup to market in three years. This is great news -- but it's not the first time that Starbucks has promised to solve its 4-billion-disposable-cups-per-year problem. So the company must provide more details, to demonstrate that this time will be different.
The world's oceans are full of plastic and 4 billion plastic-lined Starbucks cups end up in the garbage every year.
Starbucks is part of the problem: tell the coffee giant to switch to 100% recyclable cups!
By 2050, the world’s oceans are projected to have more plastic in them than fish -- and still Starbucks continues to serve billions of plastic-lined single-use coffee cups. These are nearly impossible to recycle because of their plastic lining.
The sheer amount of plastic trash created by Starbucks is out of control, and is ending up in waterways and other fragile ecosystems.
In 2008, Starbucks boldly told the world it would serve a 100% recyclable paper cup and increase reusable cup usage to 25% by 2015. To date, it hasn’t kept either of these promises.
It’s time for Starbucks to live up to its promises to give us a 100% recyclable cup, not be part of the global plastic problem.
This campaign is being run in partnership with the Break Free From Plastics Coalition, Stand.earth, Greenpeace USA, Clean Water Action, UpStream, Story of Stuff, 5 Gyres, Texas Campaign for the Environment, PPC, Care2, and Coworker.org
More information
The Sierra Club. 21 November 2017.
Alternet. 9 January 2018.