Coffee is the second most traded commodity in the world. Which unfortunately contributes enormously to the increasingly urgent pollution crisis. Sustainability researchers estimate that 2.5 billion reusable coffee cups are discarded globally every year, equating to a staggering 5000 discarded single-use cups every minute! So if a person throws away one coffee cup daily, that adds up to 23lbs of waste annually. But the use of mugs can reduce coffee cup waste dramatically!
Popular coffee shops are the biggest distributors of disposal coffee cups! But there is a simple solution to help reduce waste; replace single-use coffee mugs with real coffee mugs!
Coffee Shops That Plan to Eliminate Single-Use Cups:
Starbucks is the largest coffee chain in the world, with 33,833 stores in 80 countries and arguably the most significant contributor to single-use coffee cup waste! But last year, they announced that by the end of 2022, Starbucks customers would be allowed to use their own personal reusable cups for drive-thru and mobile orders in the United States and Canada.
The multinational coffee chain is even running tests to help prevent slow drive-thru lines, and by 2025 Starbucks plans for all customers to use reusable cups provided by the company or those they bring from home. Starbucks even hopes that by 2030, it will cut its waste and carbon emissions in half and become “resource positive” one day.
Office Coffee Culture
Another contributing factor is businesses that order their employees single-use coffee cups. But the Covid-19 Pandemic forced companies to cut back on unnecessary expenses in their kitchens and break rooms. So whether your office had a conscientious or economic reason, thousands of businesses have created a BYOC (Bring Your Own Cup) initiative for their staff members. Major corporations are starting to adopt these initiatives and convert them into policies that continue to catch on globally. And mugs are the popular choice because they are affordable, can hold hot and cold beverages, and are easy to clean–making them the best option to use in a work environment.
We Need More Mugs!
With huge coffee shop companies like Starbucks encouraging the use of reusable mugs, there will be more opportunities for mugs to be purchased. More opportunities for mug companies to produce unique mug designs. And mug wrapping machines like our patent-pending SMW-102 and SMW-AUTO can help to quickly wrap custom designs on sublimation sheets onto mugs –as fast as 14 mugs a minute and counting! Getting more mugs to consumers faster.
Our team of engineers continues to improve our custom mug wrap machinery. So the faster our mug wrappers–wrap, the fewer resources it uses and, by proxy, also contributes to helping mugs reduce coffee cup waste.
Interested in our Mug Wrappers?
