reusable coffee cups

A few days ago I listened to a presentation that really got my brain going. The talk described the huge number of disposable paper cups that are used every year in the USA because of take-out coffee. Paper coffee cups (while possibly the single biggest contributor) must be a small fraction of the total amount of garbage produced by take-out food. But I agree with the presenter that the disposable coffee cup is a great symbol for the larger problem.

The presenter worked on a team of people trying to solve this problem. The project's name is betacup and has a website and corporate support. I was quite pleased with the ideas on their website, in particular because the number 3 ranked idea was my idea!

Just to be clear I had NOTHING to do with jovoto's submission that is idea C3 on the betacup website. They developed and submitted their own idea completely on their own. This is a case of many people having the same idea independently. Not a case of plagiarism.

In fact I can't really claim that I thought of the idea on my own since I'd already seen it in action at the food fair, at a local music festival I'd attended. Really, how original is offering reusable dishes that are borrowed (requiring a deposit) at the point of purchasing food? I think not very. I just took that idea and thought it could be applied to a chain of coffee shops instead of at a single location.

Jovoto does a better job of describing the proposal and made some slick presentation slides. But here's my shot at a description with my slight additions.

The coffee chains (and I think Starbucks is the ideal chain to get the ball rolling and be the backbone to this system) would loan out re-usable, highly durable coffee mugs to every customer they sell take-out coffee to. A $3 (or so) deposit would be added to the cost of the cup of coffee, and you can get your money back when you return the mug. But since the next time you come back to the Starbucks you probably want to buy more take-out coffee, you instead trade your dirty mug for the clean one your coffee is served in.

As long as the deposit covers the cost of an un-returned mug (plus a bit of profit) this is a win-win situation. Starbucks will actually save money because they no longer need to stock disposable cups and eventually can reduce the number of mugs delivered to each store. The environment benefits: less garbage and eventually less shipping. And customers benefit since we don't need to remember to bring in our re-usable tumbler every time. (Altho there's nothing stopping anyone from continuing to use your old tumbler if you remember to bring it.)

Maybe you forget to bring in your reusable mug a few times, you would accumulate a few mugs but eventually you bring back 5 or 6 at once and get your $15 bucks back. Not the end of the world right? 

The really brilliant thing about this idea is you don't need to bring your mug back to the same Starbucks that your originally got it from. And that's where I would add to the idea.

I think as momentum grows, eventually all coffee shops will adopt the reusable coffee mug loan program. So you buy your reusable mug at a Starbucks, but bring it back to a Second Cup or whatever local coffee shop is nearby that is participating in the program. If one store starts to build up too many mugs, they can sell them to another coffee shop that needs some for the deposit price. (There would be a fee to join the program that covers the shipping costs of the mugs.)

I also think Starbucks can encourage people to collect their mugs (which generate profit) by branding the mug with the location it was first sold at. How cool would it be to get your mug of coffee in Seattle that says it first served a cup of coffee in Hong Kong? Suddenly every mug has a story. And each generation of mug would need to look different so you can track how long they last and how the mug in your hand is. They'll gain the same kind of appeal as old currency, which fascinates collectors.

While we're at it I wish grocery stores would put in a similar policy. I've got way too many re-usable bags kicking around my place and I'm forever forgetting to bring them when I go to the store.

What do you think? I think it's a relatively simple idea, that requires little or no effort for consumers to adopt, that has obvious economic and environmental benefits.

What's going on here?

I've tried blogging before. Then I gave it up.

It was a great way to keep in touch with my friends and family when I was living abroad for while. That and Flickr. But my persistent online identity eventually got eaten up by facebook. (Sound familiar to anyone?) So I have plenty of ways to publish information about myself online.

This is going to be something different. I wanted to experiment with anonymity and I wanted to write a blog about ideas. I want these ideas to stand on their own; completely apart from my identity. That's not to say that there won't be posts that involve events from my life. This is still my blog and if this is to be a genuine expression of my ideas, then it's going to draw on who I am.

But this blog isn't about me. It's about the ideas.

And who knows? Maybe they'll even start a few conversations. (Over-used as I think that word is, I think it's appropriate this time.)

Hello World

Seemed an appropriate way to start