Starbucks Won’t be Giving you a Plastic Straw with your Frappuccino

The Company will instead introduce a new recyclable straw-less lid and other alternatives

Starbucks announced Monday they will eliminate single-use plastic straws and will instead introduce a new recyclable straw-less lid. This move will definitely help the cause to end single-use plastic waste.

The company plans to eliminate more than one billion plastic straws from their stores each year. If you can’t drink your frappuccino without a straw, don’t fret, the worlds largest coffee chain will also introduce paper or compostable plastic straws.

The Strawless Lid

Strawless lids

It’s all starting this Fall, beginning out West in Vancouver and Seattle and then a global roll out of the strawless lid will follow.“For our partners and customers, this is a significant milestone to achieve our global aspiration of sustainable coffee, served to our customers in more sustainable ways,” said Kevin Johnson, president and chief executive officer for Starbucks in a media release.

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The Plastic Pollution Coalition says over 500,000,000 plastic straws are used each day in the United States. The Plastic Disclosure Project estimates that 33 percent of plastic manufactured worldwide is used once, then discarded. Making matters worse, 85 percent of the world’s plastic is not recycled when discarded. There are an estimated 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic floating in the ocean.

“There will be more plastic in our oceans than fish by the time 2050 rolls around.”

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, there could be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050. It is only getting worse. Plastic consumption is actually still increasing, for example, 1 million water bottles are thrown out every minute.

“Starbucks goal to eliminate plastic straws by 2020 from their stores globally represents the company’s forward thinking in tackling the material waste challenge in totality,” said Erin Simon, director of sustainability research & development and material science at World Wildlife Fund, U.S.