VANCOUVER, B.C. — Vancouver is to be a testing ground for a new wave of to-go cup that can be more readily recycled and in some cases reused.
On Wednesday, Starbucks announced its company-owned stores in Vancouver, New York, San Francisco and London would begin selling coffee in cups that were not lined with plastic, and in cups that could be reused.
The types of cup that will be used come from technologies identified late last year through the NextGen Consortium — that includes Starbucks, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Wendy’s. The consortium selected 12 businesses that had submitted designs in the categories of innovative cup liners, new materials and reusable cups.
The cup liner category winners include mostly non-chemical designs, while the reusable cups category included a deposit-based system for cups, and depositories for cups.
At the moment, to-go cups are hard to recycle because they have liners made of polyethylene plastic.
“Customers in Vancouver will be among the first to sip coffee from a greener to-go cup,” said Michael Conway, president of Starbucks Canada in a statement.
Starbucks has a goal to double the recyclability and reusability of its cups by 2020. The chain has also promised to increase the amount of post-consumer fibre used in paper cups from 10 per cent to 20 per cent by 2022.
Meanwhile, Starbucks will be testing strawless lids in its company-owned Toronto stores as part of its goal to phase out plastic straws by 2020.
Conway said that the company is looking at recyclable straws, but will also trial the lids that replace the need for a straw.
By David Carrigg
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
