Could 2024 be the Year of the Reusable Coffee Mug?
This year could be a tipping point for normalizing a switch across the country from single-use coffee cups to refillable ones. Why? What has changed in 2024?
The Starbucks’ Effect.
First, the world’s biggest coffee shop business announced that effective January 3, 2024, they will allow customers to bring in their own clean coffee mugs for filling, including for drive-thru and app orders. Their app facilitates this by allowing customers to select the “personal cup” option. Whether you are a Starbucks fan or not, this is big news because the largest player in the field is setting an example that could change the landscape for all major coffee shop chains.
The Stanley Cup factor.
When I first read about the craze over the Stanley Cup, I dismissed it as yet another fad encouraging hyper-consumption. Certainly buying and stashing away a collection of cups is not great for the planet. But I think there is another way to look at this craze. By increasing the popularity of this refillable cup, it normalizes the act of people bringing their own container to retail establishments. It makes it cool. There is probably no easier way to boost social acceptability for BYO (bring your own) cups than making them so trendy. I’m holding out hope that the Stanley Cup – instead of being a short-term fad with little impact -- can ultimately help boost a shift towards reusables.
Health alerts: plastics and heat don’t mix well.
We see more and more media coverage as research points to the dangers of pervasive plastics. Microplastics have now been detected in tissue and organs throughout the human body, and the damaging health consequences of exposure to and ingestion of plastics are of increasing concern.
Many of us are now aware that heating plastics releases toxins. In our household, we no longer microwave our leftovers in plastic takeout containers. Hot fluids—think coffee—should also not be exposed to the plastic lining in the “paper” coffee cups that are so convenient and popular. As more and more consumers become aware of the health risks, I suspect they will see the appeal of embracing the use of a safer non-plastic lined mug.
Of course, health is not the only concern with single-use coffee cups. They are also terrible for the environment. It takes millions of trees, billions of gallons of water and massive amounts of energy to make the billions of plastic-lined paper cups Americans use every year. These cups take up a large area in landfills and are hardly ever recycled because it is too difficult to remove the plastic film from the rest of the paper cup.
If you want to be part of the shift toward reusable cups, here are some steps you could take in your daily life that would also influence others:
Take Starbucks up on their offer.
I generally drink my coffee in the morning and at home. But about twice a month I head to Starbucks with a group of friends after our Saturday morning walk. So I was thrilled to test out Starbucks’ new mug policy in early January. Sure enough, it worked smoothly. (Check out how to do it here.) But unsurprisingly, when I looked around the place, nobody else besides my friends and me were using their own coffee mugs. If we want to send a signal to Starbucks that we like their new policy, the best way is to take them up on their offer.
BYO everywhere.
Starbucks is not the only place that allows you to bring your own cup. Many coffee shops will offer ceramic mugs for in-house orders or they’ll accept your own mug. Some even provide discounts for using your own. If there is no sign indicating you can BYO, just ask. And other customers will notice when you do.
An initiative I started in 2023 called DC Reduces takes the guesswork out of figuring out whether a coffee shop will accept your own mug in Washington, DC. Six of us volunteers have convinced 64 shops in Washington, DC to place a green sticker in their window to signal to customers that they can bring their own containers. Of the 64 businesses participating in the program, 23 are coffee shops. I am also part of US Reduces, an umbrella group that supports other community efforts to allow reusables. If you would like to know whether your city has a program or if you are interested in starting up a program (it’s easy to do!), check out the US Reduces site map.
DC Reduces volunteers at a recent gathering. Left to right: Stephanie Miller, Maria Betancourt, Caroline Vance and Kath Campbell. Not pictured: Laura MacInnis and Kira Westbrook.
Make it easy for yourself.
We all know that setting ourselves up for success takes a bit of planning. If I want to increase the odds that I’ll exercise in the morning, I set out my workout clothes the night before. Same goes for the new habit of bringing your own coffee mug. Put it where you’ll remember it. If you see on your calendar that you have a coffee meeting that day, set your mug by the front door so you don’t forget it. My husband and I realized that occasionally we have a cup of afternoon coffee outside the house, so now we keep two coffee mugs in the trunk of our car inside our reusable grocery bags. Just in case.
Remember your friends.
If you know you plan to hit a coffee shop for a meeting for work or with friends, why not bring them a mug too? (Don’t have extra mugs? Consider thrifting one.) Or better yet, remind them the night before to bring a mug.
To achieve a massive shift away from single-use coffee cups, we ultimately need systems in place that make it easy for customers to access safe, reusable containers from the businesses they frequent and return those containers for cleaning and refilling. In the meantime, bringing our own coffee mugs for refilling could dramatically reduce waste and address the health consequences of drinking from plastic-lined containers, while signaling to businesses that this is a change consumers want to see.
So, what do you think? Can we make 2024 the Year of the Reusable Coffee Mug? I think we can!
