Starbucks Coffee Japan switching to paper straws this month

Many people take a break at coffee shops every now and then in between work and study. It’s often the case that many of the coffee chain stores are crowded, and at peak times it’s difficult to secure a seat. Now, imagine the amount of plastic used and discarded every day at these coffee shops visited by coffee frenzies including yourself?

Major coffee chain Starbucks Coffee has not ignored this. In July 2018, it announced that it will abolish disposable plastic straws at Starbucks worldwide by the end of 2020. In response to this commitment and following their campus notebooks, Starbucks Coffee Japan Co., Ltd. has decided to switch from plastic straws to paper straws, which will be introduced gradually from January 2020.

By March, it hopes that it will be offering paper straws at every 1,500 Starbucks stores across Japan. In addition, from May 2020, it will also switch their thick plastic straws used for its popular Frappuccino® drinks to paper straws. All of these straws will use FSC® certified paper produced from raw materials derived carefully from managed forests or other controlled resources. By converting from plastic to paper straws, it estimates a reduction of approximately 200 million plastic straws annually.

The challenge for sustainability has been a corporate philosophy for Starbucks Coffee, which values the idea of “community contribution” since its founding. They have been taking various approaches to keeping the environment clean from quite some time ago. For example, since they opened their first store in Ginza in 1996, Starbucks Japan has been asking its visitors to bring in their own cup or tumblers to enjoy their drinks. If visitors do bring their cups and tumblers into Starbucks, they get a discount of 20 yen on top of a tax-free price. Also, drinks can be provided in mug cups if you ask.

Moreover, at some stores in the Kanto and Kansai area, coffee grounds are collected and recycled as fertilizers to grow cow’s lactic acid fermented feed. Milk from dairy cows that are raised eating this feed, are used at some Starbucks stores, creating an environmentally friendly circulation. Also, about 1,000 tons of milk packages gathered from Starbucks stores nationwide, have been recycled into toilet paper sold in the market and paper napkins used at Starbucks stores.

Starbucks says in addition to straws, it will continue its effort to reduce other disposable plastic materials as well, with the aim to bring more positive changes to the local community. Next year, every time we step into a Starbucks store, we’ll know their effort when we look at their paper straws, which will enable us to think about what we can do as individuals to create a more sustainable future.