| 23 June 2010 |
| Karma cup to reduce paper waste |
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As waste paper cups become a more recognised problem some ingenious solutions are put forward. The latest is a project known as Karma Cup, which won a sustainable design contest called betacup in June 2010 by introducing a simple reward program. The program has attracted the support of Starbucks (widely regarded as one of the top paper cup waste producers) who also sponsored the design competition.
Karma Cup will give customers a major incentive to use reusable coffee mugs by offering free drinks.
The concept is simple for every customer that uses a reusable cup/mug a chalkboard adjacent to the till is marked up and every tenth reusable mug ‘marked up’ gets the customer a free drink.
The concept beat 400 other entrants and won a prize of $10,000.
According to the latest figures, in the US alone, more than 58 billion paper cups are consumed and thrown away annually with the majority ending up in landfills. Starbucks has already made a pledge to serve all of its drinks in recyclable and reusable cups by 2015.
A similar idea has already been trialled in the UK by Costa coffee and also Starbucks where a discount has been offered on coffee served in reusable mugs and was hailed as a great success.
There are some great travel/reusable mugs on the market and after the initial investment if you are a regular customer of Starbucks or any other popular coffee shop then potentially you could save a packet.
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