Hello! Welcome back to the finale of our week 7 theme on the environmental pollution of coffee! In this last post of the week, we will be re-examining the pollutive challenges that Starbucks face and how they have successfully (or not successfully) reduced their pollution impacts.

In 2018, Starbucks joined the straw-free movement by announcing that it would eliminate all straws in its outlets by 2020 (Caron, 2018). With this movement, the company then had to switch to using recyclable straw-less lids to cover their drinks. The Frappuccino, which requires a straw to drink, was then provided a more sustainable alternative – paper straws. However, with reference to the previous post, the thicker straw-less plastic lids have raised questions on the efficacy of ensuring the environmental sustainability of their operations as the extra plastic may negate the elimination of plastic straws (Mahdawi, 2018). Mahdawi (2018) further corroborates her argument as she finds that only 9% of the world’s plastic is actually recycled. As such, the efficacy of the elimination of straws can be questioned here.

On the other hand, Starbucks has progressively been coming up with new green initiatives throughout its global operations. For example, in South Korea, the company decided to discontinue the distribution of disposable cups in their cafes by 2025 (Lucas, 2021). While they phase out the use of their disposable cups, they plan to introduce a circular cup programme in South Korea, where consumers pay a small deposit for a reusable cup, which they can subsequently return at a kiosk. Upon evaluation, I do feel that this circular cup programme is a plausible way to replace the use of disposable cups as it allows the coffee chain to provide the convenience to customers who are looking to order and go. However, I also believe that there might be negative repercussions to this initiative as some consumers who pay the small deposit may not have an incentive to return back the cup. As such, the reusable cups may not be returned and be disposed off instead, creating more pollution to the environment.

In light of this, I believe once again that it is the onus of the consumer to consume responsibly as there is only so much businesses can do. Ultimately, for corporations to sustain themselves, there needs to be a reasonable amount of revenue generated, of which this revenue is influenced by the ways that corporations are able to feed the consumers demand. Therefore, consumers play a significant role in the environmental pollution created by businesses and producers.

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