The Reusable Cup Trend is Out of Control

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I just want to grab the shoulders of these “Stanley collectors” who have 150 of the same reusable cup and shake them screaming “It’s supposed to be REUSED!!!”

I used to work at Starbucks Canada and realized very few people know we also serve the drinks in regular mugs/tea cups/glasses. It’s not very popular so we don’t offer that option if you don’t specifically ask for it. If you’re planning on staying in the cafe to enjoy your drink, definitely ask for those! It’s a great way of saving resources and the baristas might surprise you with latte art! ☕️

I used my water bottles for years and I'll keep using them until they're absolutely unusable/damaged beyond repair.

"Make Coffee at Home".

No joke, the last time I brought a reusable cup into my local Tims, they took a disposable cup to make the coffee, poured it from that cup into my reusable one, then threw out the disposable cup. Why did I even bother at that point?

There's a zero waste coffee shop in Brooklyn called IXV, and they have a basket of what they call "community cups." Customers can donate mugs they no longer want or use, and then people who need to order a coffee "to go" and didn't bring their own reusable cup can get the coffee in a "community cup" and take it with them. If the mugs never make it back to the cafe, it isn't a hit to the business' bottom line because they were donated in the first place, it reduces the number of single-use compostable cups they have to give out, and the people donating the mugs know they're going to continue being used instead of maybe sitting on a thrift store shelf before heading to landfill. It seems like a win-win-win as far as I'm concerned. It would be an amazing model for more cafes to adopt!

I moved to Croatia recently and the coffee drinking culture here is massively different. Everybody drinks coffee either at home or from tiny espresso mugs at coffee shops, where people go and sit for hours just chilling. No giant to-go cups on sight. Naturally, you can't find a Starbucks (or similar) anywhere.

We do have exchangeable "keep cup" programs in Germany in a bunch of cities. You pay a fee for the cup and get it back when you return the cup. And you can return it at every coffee place that is part of the program, which makes things a lot easier. The IKEA bistro in my city has the same type of cups too now. They even have a machine that spits out your 50 Cents when you insert your empty cup.

Australian here, absolutely can confirm your "Keep cup" anecdote. They are ubiquitous in office spaces throughout Sydney!

I went to Tim Hortons with my reusable mug. The clerk said they weren't allowed to serve beverages in anything other than Tim Hortons single use cups, and I could pour it back into my mug myself if I wanted to. Then they proceeded to add a thermal sleeve to my cup. I haven't been back since and make much better coffee at home.

All the hype around a "cup" is wildd 😭

we still have the italian coffe culture in italy, it's very unusual to see people take their coffees to go. The reusable bottles are popular among office workers, as most offices tend to have water coolers (which is cheaper than buying bottled water every single time). Starbucks also does espresso style coffee in italy, and most italians (i include myself) who go there take their espresso right at the bar and not to go. Most coffee places don't even have the option to take it to go (I live in Milan, not some villages in the mountain). You either drink it right there, or you can take a seat and drink it more slowly. Take away is not really an option now that I think of that.

One of the issues is that a lot of coffee shops give you the side eye if you bring your own cup. I've been on the receiving end of that and it's very uncomfortable.

Home brewed coffee at home with $10 insulated mug from Walmart. Used it for over a year at this point saving time and money.

Not Australian but I know that Keepcup has become a big thing in my UK university city (Oxford). Pretty much every library only allows Keepcups for hot drinks, every college/library/university entity has their own Keepcup design, and you can get a discount for bringing your own cup pretty much everywhere. Oxford loves these things!

Hey Levi, a fellow Victoria-area resident here! Just to give your producer some credit: that cup has the BPI certification logo which means it IS actually "compostable" - meaning you can chuck it in your kitchen scraps bin and it does meet the standards to be composted at our local Hartland landfill :) *Pro tip*: if you DO see that logo on a product, you CAN compost it through a municipal waste facility (at least in most of BC, Canada I'd imagine, though folks from other places should check out their local guidelines to see if they'd be accepted where they live too). If you DON'T see THAT SPECIFIC BPI logo do NOT put it in the compost, even if it has the word "compostable" or "biodegradable" on it (like those pesky cutlery items that say "compostable" on them but have no certification label). It most likely has NOT been certified and should be thrown in the GARBAGE (sadly). One big problem with composting/recycling systems, is that people (often with good intentions) try and compost/recycle things that actually can't be properly processed (PB jars are a big culprit). If a load of recycling or compost has too many things in it that don't meet the requirements, it "contaminates" the load, and waste processors may have to throw the ENTIRE load in the garbage (even the actual compostable veggie scraps or cleaned recyclable glass containers) because it's too expensive to filter that stuff out. If you're not sure if something is compostable/too lazy to check and/or clean your recycling, you're better off throwing it in the trash than potentially contaminating a whole load of others' correctly disposed of compost/recycling (source: I work in an adjacent field where I do public education on this kind of stuff and have had multiple conversations with our local waste management staff).  Fun fact I learned last year while touring Hartland landfill - paper cups with plastic linings (rinsed/cleaned) can be recycled with the "mixed containers" stream :) they give public tours of the facility - maybe worth bringing this show on the road and giving Hartland a visit and getting the inside scoop on various FAQs!

The town I used to live in had a small coffee shop that had every drink in glass jars (with lids, and coozies for the warm drinks) and when you’d return them, they gave you a dollar off. They didn’t have paper cups at all. It was so wonderful! It was our favorite place by far and I miss it so much.

Meh I hate all of this stuff. Im not carrying a portable mug with me everywhere I go. Please serve my coffee in a mug or teacup, thank you. Not everything needs to be "To go".

I fill a big-ass thermos with instant coffee every morning, which is absolutely the most environmentally sustainable way to drink coffee.