Starbucks and Coffee Bean waste an awful lot of paper and plastic

Do you go into Coffee Bean and they ask you “For here or to go?” Notice you never get asked that at Starbucks? It is actually a very complicated sales tax issue that this website explains rather well.

The problem is, this sales tax policy is a disaster for the environment. If you answer “To go,” as everybody does (lying through their teeth), then you do not get to drink tea or coffee from their china or glass, which would be more “green” and, instead, your cup goes in the trash. Think of how much paper and plastic is being dumped into the trash (and therefore landfills) every day by coffee shops.

Starbucks cups and Coffee Bean cups are not recyclable because of a plastic resin lamination lining (the lids and sleeves can be recycled).

Coffee Bean resembles indie coffee shops and coffee shops overseas, by offering you the choice of drinking from their china or glass. Starbucks doesn’t. Coffee Bean has it right by offering the choice but legislators are not making it easy for them. Isn’t it time they tweaked the law so that customers are not penalized for using china and glass cups on-premises? Starbucks and Coffee Bean do encourage customers to bring in their own cups for a small discount, however I am not convinced that is going to be part of any long-term solution.

It is ironic given the way Starbucks touts its “green” cred. To produce all these paper cups uses up an extremely large amount of trees, water and energy and, once they are in landfills, they begin producing methane as they decompose. In their defense, they are working on solutions but they are some ways off.