Booming cold drink sales mean more plastic waste. So Starbucks redesigned its cups

Booming sales of cold drinks at Starbucks have created a problem: growing amounts of plastic waste from the single-use cups that Frappuccinos, Refreshers, cold brews and other iced drinks are served in.

The coffee giant said Thursday it plans to alleviate some of that waste with new disposable cups that contain up to 20% less plastic. The cups are set to be rolled out to stores in the U.S. and Canada starting this month.

Amelia Landers, Starbucks’ vice president of product innovation, said the Seattle-based company spent the last four years developing the new containers. Engineers tested thousands of iterations to see how much plastic they could remove while still making the cup feel sturdy.

“We feel like it’s industry-leading,” Landers said. “It’s the best expression of a cold plastic cup.”

Starbucks says Frappuccinos and other cold drinks now account for 75% of its U.S. beverage sales, up from 37% in 2013. The company estimates the new cups will keep more than 13.5 million pounds of plastic out of landfills each year. Producing the tumblers also requires less water and creates fewer carbon emissions, a leading cause of climate change, it said.

Starbucks made other changes as part of the redesign. The new cold cups feature raised dots near the bottom, so baristas – including those with impaired vision – can quickly feel with the swipe of a thumb which size cup they’re holding. And the 12-ounce cup — that's the “tall” size in Starbucks lingo — is shorter and wider to accommodate the same-size lid as larger cups.

Landers said the new cups are part of a sustained sustainability push at Starbucks. The company adopted strawless lids in 2019. Last year, it said it would accept customer-provided cups for drive-thru and mobile orders in the U.S. and Canada.

The company plans to roll out a reusable cup program at thousands of stores in Europe, the Middle East and Africa by next year. Under the program, customers will pay a small deposit when they buy a hot or cold drink in a specially designed cup that can be used up to 30 times. They will get the deposit back when they return the cup to a store.

Starbucks also has tested U.S. reusable cup programs in California, Arizona and Colorado.

“Every market has their own challenges, their own requirements and customer behavior. Some are more prime for reusables, some are less prime for reusables,” Landers said. "There is no one silver bullet to a sustainable cup.”

Longer term, Starbucks has said it wants all of its packaging to be reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2030. The reduced-plastic cup making its debut is a small step toward that goal: even though the cup is recyclable, it still was designed for one-time use, Landers said.

The company will continue to explore ways to make single-use cups more sustainable, she said.

“I think we will never take our foot off the gas, evaluating new ways and new methods and new technologies to go further,” she said. “We’re not done.”

Starbucks isn’t the only company rethinking plastic packaging. In some markets, McDonald’s has introduced McFlurry cups without plastic lids, and salad boxes and cutlery made from renewable fiber. Late last year, Coca-Cola said it had developed a bottle made entirely from plant-based sources. Coke produced a limited-run of 900 bottles to show that the technology can be commercially scaled.

This photo provided by Starbucks shows a new version of the company's cold cup which is said to be made with up to 20% less plastic. The introduction of the cups will be announced on Thursday, April 18, 2024. (Starbucks via AP)

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — A humanitarian crisis is worsening in northeastern Mali where armed groups linked to Islamic State have besieged major towns leaving residents including some 80,000 children vulnerable to malnutrition, locals and an aid group warned Wednesday.

The town of Ménaka has been under siege for four months, driving up the prices of food. Other essential goods like medication are increasingly hard to find, residents and aid groups say.

“The humanitarian situation is catastrophic, with displaced people going from house to house asking for food for their families. Children are threatened with starvation,” Wani Ould Hamadi, deputy mayor of the town of Ménaka, told the Associated Press.

Mali, along with its neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger, has for over a decade battled an insurgency fought by armed groups, including some allied with al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. Following military coups in all three nations in recent years, the ruling juntas have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance instead.

Col. Assimi Goita, who took charge in Mali after a second coup in 2021, promised to beat back the armed groups, but the United Nations and other analysts say the government has rapidly lost ground.

The aid group Save the Children said some 80,000 children were trapped inside the town of Ménaka facing malnutrition and disease, and many were unaccompanied having fled violence elsewhere..

“Children in Menaka are trapped in a living nightmare. Let us be clear: unless the blockade is lifted , starvation and disease will led to deaths,” Siaka Ouattara, the country director, said in a statement.

Ayouba Ag Nadroun, a man who fled to Ménaka to escape violence in other parts of the country said he was unable to provide for his extended family of some 15 members, including many women and children, and surviving on scarce handouts of aid. “I have no job, how can I help them?” he told the AP.

“The blockades subject villagers to violence, hunger and fear and have long been a tactic used by these jihadist groups to punish communities for their perceived support of the government,” said Sahel analyst Corinne Dufka adding that they had often succeeded in pressuring the communities to sign non-aggression accords with the groups.

Mali's leader, Goita, has promised to return the country to democracy in early 2024. But in September, the junta canceled elections scheduled for February 2024 indefinitely, citing the need for further technical preparations.

Last month, his ruling junta ordered all political activities to stop, and the following day ordered the media to stop reporting on political activities.

Armed groups besieging towns in northeastern Mali driving residents, many children, to hunger

Armed groups besieging towns in northeastern Mali driving residents, many children, to hunger

In this 2018 photograph released by Mouvement pour le Salut de l'Azawad, Islamic State group commander Abu Huzeifa, known by the alias Higgo, poses in uniform. Mali's army said in a statement late Monday, April 29, 2024, that Huzeifa was killed by Malian state forces. The United States had announced a reward of up to $5 million reward for anyone providing information about him. Huzeifa was believed to have helped carry out an attack in 2017 on U.S. and Nigerien forces in Tongo Tongo, Niger, which led to the deaths of four Americans and four Nigerien soldiers. (AP Photo)