Starbucks will chuck plastic straws in hopes of reducing ocean waste
Those days of searching for the correctly sized straw for your giant iced drink at a Starbucks counter will soon come to an end, as the company has announced it intends to fully ditch plastic straws by 2020.
As an alternative, the super-mega coffee chain announced via press release Monday morning that it will roll out new lids designed for cold drinks.
Not completely unlike the lids the company currently uses for hot drinks, the new cold lids will be used in Starbucks' backyard of Seattle and Vancouver starting this fall before expanding to more markets in 2019.
And if your drink of choice is one of those sugar-loaded Frappuccino beverages, or you just really want a straw, the company plans to offer straws made of "alternative materials," which is another way of saying paper or "compostable plastic."
The announcement follows the decision by Seattle, Starbucks' hometown, to completely ban plastic straws and utensils from all eateries as a means to, among other environment-related reasons, help battle the growing crisis of plastic pollution of the oceans, particularly the Pacific Ocean.
It also lines up with a push to fight climate change spearheaded by former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz. Schultz moved from CEO to executive chairman of the company in the spring of 2017 before announcing his departure from the company in June 2018, fueling speculation of a run for president in 2020.
The coffee chain has been in the news for the wrong reasons this year, especially over an April incident in which two black men were arrested at a Philadelphia location for no reason after a Starbucks employee reported the men. The incident led to a round of racial bias trainings for employees.
But the plastic straw ban is a positive move for the company, which has already announced a pilot surcharge in London on disposable cups to encourage reusable cup purchases, and has announced plans to develop a recyclable, compostable cup.
In other words, your favorite coffee chain may be doing more to protect the environment than your president, which is saying something.
Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.
