Starbucks makes progress in cup recycling goal
As reported, Starbucks set an ambitious goal to ensure 100% of its cups are reusable or recyclable by 2015.
The good news is, they are making progress!
With International Paper and Mississippi River Pulp, LLC, Starbucks has finished a six-week pilot project that for the first timeproved Starbucks used paper cups can be recycled into new paper cups. So this success takes them one step closer.
Starbucks also has another recycling pilot project underway in New York. The company is collecting paper cups at 86 of its Manhattan stores (just how many do they have in Manhattan anyway?) to determine whether they can be recycled into bath tissue and paper towels.
Another recycling project is slated for 2011 in Chicago, which aims to transform the company’s discarded paper cups into napkins for use in its stores.
This past year, Starbucks began front-of-store cup collection in Toronto and Seattle, where its cups can be recycled, and in San Francisco, where its cups can be composted.
Do you know of any other interesting paper recycling initiatives? If you do, let me know!
Commercial food scrap composting
San Francisco, long time metropolitan recycling leader in this country, let alone the globe recently passed a mandatory recycling ordinance. Residential and commercial building owners must sign up for recycling and composting services. San Francisco has already attained a 72% recycling rate and they’re going to go higher now – to 75%.
Essentially about one-third of landfilled material is recyclable. Tenants, both residential and commercial want to recycle, but the owners have been lagging.
Logistically, buildings have to supply three waste and recycling bins. One each for trash, recyclables and composting.
