Starbucks rolls out reusable plastic cups

For years (maybe decades) Starbucks has offered a ten cent discount for bringing in your own cup. And yet it’s surprising how few people take them up on this offer. I have to sheepishly include myself on that list frequently, despite my best intentions. In order to help boost the reusable cups (and presumably cut down on the number of single-use paper cups they have to produce) Starbucks has launched a new product: the reusable plastic cup.

Priced at only a dollar, the reusable plastic Starbucks cup looks and feels remarkably like the traditional paper cup. It has a matte finish on the outside that not only mimics the paper cup, it also makes it easier to grip. It also has a molded white lid which is just like the traditional lid with one improvement: the vent hole is larger.

(The vent hole on the standard single-use cups is one of my personal annoyances. I always poke it larger with a car key or a pen. It makes the coffee pour much more smoothly. Try it next time!)

 The jury is still out on whether or not these cups will be successful. The pricing of the cups is obviously meant to put them in the same mental space as reusable tote bags from the grocery store, rather than the “fancy stainless steel cup” that most of us already have. This means you’re more likely to buy a lot of them, and thus more likely to have one handy in your car when you stop in for coffee.

Unfortunately it doesn't help with most people’s major objection to reusable cups, which is that you have to walk into a Starbucks holding a sticky cup with stale coffee dregs and possibly lipstick stains on the lip, and ask the barista to put a new coffee into it. The baristas are happy to rinse the cup out for you, but it’s still a somewhat unpleasant experience. If someone can invent a self-cleaning, reusable coffee cup, they will truly rule the world!

Image courtesy of Flickr/David Atkinson Images