Earth Day at Starbucks: Free Reusable Cup to the first 25 Customers. 

Earth Day is April 22, 2017! In honor of Earth Day, every Starbucks store in the United States (company-operated stores only) will be giving away free re-usable cups to the first 25 customers in the store on Saturday, April 22nd. These are the reusable cups that are being given away:

These plastic cups do have lids, although not shown here. These cups are estimated to have a lifespan of roughly 30 uses.

The idea here is to get people using re-usable cups! Bringing in your own cup to Starbucks is, by far, the most “green” thing you can do. When you bring in your own cup, you avoid putting more plastics into landfills. Even if you throw your Starbucks plastic or paper cup into the recycling, this involves a lot more energy than the little bit of water to simply wash a re-usable cup. A bag of recycling ends up being trucked to an industrial facility to sort the recyclables. There’s the energy, water, and factory process to turn your plastic cup into something new. And then the recycled-item is then trucked back into the stream of commerce.

Starbucks has never been able to persuade customers to bring in their own cups in any large scale way. At most, less than 3% of all customers bring their own cup to Starbucks.

I want to encourage you to bring in your own cup!

And baristas, please do not forget to hit the “personal cup” button at the registers.

Get to Starbucks early on the 22nd for a free cup!