In an effort to go green and possibly distract from rising prices, Starbucks has started to try out environmentally-friendly cups. The coffee giant hopes these new cups will cut down on the amount of trash the company produces and earn some goodwill from the public. And at the rate consumers guzzle down their bucks, this may be a fantastic idea.
The Frugalpac cups are being workshopped in U.K. Starbucks locations and are designed with a film liner to seamlessly separate from the paper during the recycling process. The goal for Bucks brass is to cut down on the environmental impact by 2.5 billion paper coffee cups. To put that into perspective, only one in 400 paper cups are currently recycled in the U.K., as reported by The Guardian. Starbucks wants to fix this transgression, and a company spokesman says they are getting to work right away:
“We are very interested in finding out more about the Frugalpac cup and we will be testing it to see if it meets our standards for safety and quality, with a view to trialling its recyclability.”
This new green initiative comes on the heels of some recent bad press for the coffee brand. Earlier this month, a petition signed by more than 100,000 employees accused Starbucks of “killing morale” because of reduced shifts and lack of sick days. And how did the brand help improve this issue? By passing the price onto the consumer. But Starbucks justified the price hike saying it would help improve employee salaries.
That controversy hasn’t yet cooled, but the transition to more environmentally-friendly cups is a good focus for the brand, and they hope the trend will shift across other countries.
(Via The Guardian)
