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Welcome to this week’s edition of the Thomas Index Report.
Last month, coffee giant Starbucks announced plans to phase out its iconic paper cups and replace them with reusable options by 2025 as part of the company’s overarching waste reduction strategy.
The global chain plans to have more customers bring in their own cups, a program that is already in place but was temporarily paused during the pandemic. They will also let customers borrow a cup from a store location and return it once they are finished. The returned cups will then be cleaned and reused.
Starbucks says their single-use cups and lids make up 40% of the company’s packaging waste and 20% of the brand’s global waste.
Considering the average American drinks about 2 cups of coffee a day, Americans use 120 billion disposable cups every year, which – if placed end to end – could circle the equator almost 333 times. 26 billion of those cups are made of foam, 38 billion are plastic, and 54 billion are made from paper. But those paper cups are typically lined with a polyethylene plastic coating, which means they can’t be easily recycled through standard processes. Only about 1% of all single-use cups are actually recycled. In total, this generates 2.2 billion pounds of waste.
Demand for paper cups on the Thomasnet.com platform is up 78% year over year, with demand for plastic cups up 51% over the same timeframe. And demand for coffee isn’t showing any signs of slowing, either; sourcing for coffee has spiked 57% over the last 12 months.
I’m Shawn Fitzgerald, and this is the Thomas Index Report.
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