In 2024, the Starbucks Innovation Hub in Seattle, Washington, found they could successfully produce one plastic Starbucks cup with 10-20% less plastic than previous models. After that discovery, Starbucks transitioned to newer, more sustainable cups with reduced plastic, decreasing carbon emissions from the overall production process.
According to the Starbucks website, their 2025 innovation goal is to completely eliminate their classic plastic cups in many stores across the USA and Canada. In order to accomplish this, they wrote they have begun offering mugs and glasses for all “for here” orders. As another option for “to go” orders, Starbucks allows customers to bring their own reusable cup, such as a washable mug, tumbler or thermos. To encourage people to use these new offerings, Starbucks provides free refills to anyone ordering in their own reusable cup or in a Starbucks “for here” cup.
Many Starbucks coffee shops have also begun using compostable paper cups for hot and colds drinks in order to minimize the use of plastic cups.
Emilio, who only shared his first name, is an employee at the Starbucks across the street from the Brentwood country mart, one of the stores that uses the compostable and “for here” cups. According to Emilio, this location has been providing these new cups for approximately one month. Due to the change, he said there have been some complaints against the compostable cups, with some customers missing the old plastic cups; this has caused more customers to choose the “for here” cups when staying at the cafe.
When asked about this change, two members of the Archer community said this change is important because of the harmful effects that single-use plastic has on our planet.
Biology teacher Joshua Stern described the effects plastic production and consumerism has on our ecosystem. Specifically, he said plastic negatively impacts wildlife before it reaches the landfill starting in the production process.
“The most harmful effect is how it’s made,” Stern said. “Plastic is petroleum-based or oil-based, so getting all the materials to make plastic, plastic cups and straws and containers, emits a lot of CO2, and it’s a big contributor to global warming.”
When CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere, it traps heat near earths surface, worsening global warming, according to an article by National Geographic. In addition, Stern said excess CO2 emissions negatively impact the homeostasis of animals’ lives and our ecosystem. He discussed consumers’ control over how much they contribute to the excess CO2 emissions.
“All these these changes to the environment are things that plants and animals can’t adapt to very quickly,” Stern said. “And so we’ll see a lot of plants and animals dying, which wrecks our entire ecosystem … As consumers, our power is with our dollar. When a company sees that people are buying paper and compostable cups rather than plastic, that’s telling them that they need to start making more paper and compostable cups, so we can really affect what is being produced with what we’re buying.”
Leader of the Archer Council for Sustainability Grace Ryan (’25) said single-use plastics, specifically microplastics, have a domino effect on the environment.
“Microplastics go into the ocean, or they’re consumed by animals,” Ryan said, “which are then consumed by us.”
Ryan said it is dangerous to rely on companies that say they are recycling their materials in order to keep selling plastic, as this is not always the case.
“You might think, ‘Oh, but it’s okay, plastic can be recycled.’ And Starbucks, for a long time was on this marketing kick, [saying], ‘No, no we’re fine, our cups can be recycled we’re not actually killing the environment,'” Ryan said. “But the problem — using Starbucks as an example — is that a lot of things aren’t actually recycled even though they could technically be recyclable.”
According to CBS news, two women organized a project in Orange County last year to uncover the truth about where the recycled Starbucks cups were truly ending up. The CBS article described how Susan Keefe conducted her experiment: “[Keefe] drops [the cups] right back into the world-famous coffee shop’s recycling bins. From there, she tracks their journey by phone, following those trucks to wherever they drop their load at … In most instances, she followed trucks to an Orange County landfill, which is the opposite of ideal.”
Stern described what he thinks is the best alternative to prevent growing landfills and faulty recycling, that could lower the amount of waste coming from Starbucks
“The best alternative is to just consume less, particularly less plastics,” Stern said. “If you hear the common phrase ‘reduce, reuse, recycle,’ reduce is that first one for a reason.”
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