The Starbucks coffee cup challenge calls on caffeinated thinkers to come up with a new, eco-friendly take on the paper coffee cup and is offering $10 million in grants to get the creative juices flowing. Decaf ideas are also eligible.
The NextGen Cup Challenge, which is seeing Starbucks partner with Closed Loop Partners and its Center for the Circular Economy, was announced on Tuesday in a bid to reduce waste by developing a recyclable, compostable cup, Food and Wine reported.
Americans alone consume 400 million cups of coffee per day, which adds up to 146 billion cups of coffee per year, Carry Your Cup reported.
If one person buys one cup of coffee or tea in a disposable cup every day for a year, they end up creating about 23 pounds of waste.
In light of those statistics, Starbucks said it decided to reduce its environmental footprint.
“Today, we are declaring a moon shot for sustainability to work together as an industry to bring a fully recyclable and compostable cup to the market, with a three-year ambition,” said Colleen Chapman, vice president of Starbucks global social impact overseeing sustainability.
Rob Kaplan, managing director of Closed Loop Partners, explained that the challenge would “enable leading innovators and entrepreneurs with financial, technical, and expert resources to fast-track global solutions, help get those solutions to shelf, through the recovery system and back into the supply chain.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council’s senior director, Erik Olson, expressed concern at the number of fast-food containers that were not recyclable.
“Any movement in reducing the amount of waste that goes to landfills and moving to recyclable or at least compostable containers is a good thing,” he said, per USA Today.
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