Starbucks expanding recycling program with coffee cups in Chicago

June 29, 2010|By Melissa Allison, McClatchy/Tribune news


This fall, the Seattle-based company will send cups used at its Chicago stores to Green Bay, Wis., where a Georgia-Pacific paper mill will turn them into Starbucks napkins.

The effort is a major push by the coffeehouse chain to create a commercial market for its used cups, which include 1 billion plastic cups for cold drinks.

Over the last few weeks, it has put recycle and compost bins into 90 Seattle stores to comply with a new city ordinance. By Thursday, every grocery store, restaurant and coffee shop in Seattle will be required to recycle and compost and to provide recyclable or compostable to-go packaging for everything from ground beef to lattes.

The new ordinance will prevent 6,000 tons of food and serviceware from piling onto garbage heaps. Starbucks' cups also are recycled or composted in San Francisco and Ontario, Canada, because of laws there.


"The biggest roadblock to recycling is the lack of demand" for old paper, said Jim Hanna, Starbucks' director of environmental impact and global responsibility. "We need to create demand for recyclers for our products."

The effort is similar to what the Coca-Cola Co. has done in South Carolina, where it invested $60 million in a plant that makes soda pop bottles from old soda bottles and other recycled plastic.

Environmental activists at the As You Sow Foundation in San Francisco, which led a shareholder initiative this year to push Starbucks to recycle more, is pleased with Starbucks' latest efforts. The initiative received 11 percent of the vote, a healthy chunk considering that mutual funds and other institutions own three-quarters of Starbucks' stock.

"Their goal is not just to have recycling bins in stores by 2015 but to find markets so all those paper cups actually get recycled," said Conrad MacKerron, director of corporate social responsibility at the nonprofit.