Seattle Weekly writer finds which coffee giant is green

Seattle Weekly Writer, Aimee Curl, dug below the coffee grounds and into the dirt. Turns out that Tully’s is out-greening the coffee giant, Starbucks. They are using “eco-tainers” and really managing their waste flow. The smaller Seattle coffee chain report 78% recycling rate for all the waste their business creates. Read more….

Little coffee companies are leading the way.

The Point – tipping the balance for reusable cups.

A new website, The Point, allows anyone to start a boycott or similar campaign against a company or organization. One of the more popular one’s is against Starbuck’s use of unsustainable disposable to-go cups. P. Zelchenko, who started this action, is hoping it “will embarrass Starbucks into truly embracing the environmental ideals that it claims to espouse.”

The idea starts with 102,950 people joining this campaign after which time they will begin writing their names on each paper cup they are served for “in store” use. If Starbucks does not comply they will “insist that they remain on a shelf, to be reused the next time we return to the store.”

Another campaign of interest involves Pepsi’s use of unsustainable plastic in bottling their Aquafina Brand water. “When we reach our goal of recruiting 50,000 Aquafina drinkers, we will stop drinking Aquafina water, causing PepsiCo an abrupt drop in profits, amounting to approximately $20 million annually in gross profit.” They demand they find a bio-plastic alternative to existing bottles or suffer the consequences of a sizable boycott and likely a lot of bad press. Cheers to the campaign organizers and everyone at The Point for an interesting approach to social change.

Cornstarch Coffee Travel Mug

We all know that using any sort of cup that is washable is far superior to disposable versions. It’s better for the planet, uses less land fill space, no trees get cut down, and more…

GreenHome.com offers suggestions for eco-friendly alternatives to popular earth-nasty products. Included in their offerings is a travel mug made from corn-starch. This sustainable and renewable organic compound looks and feels like plastic but under years of hot and moist conditions, will biodegrade . I don’t think you can put it in the dishwasher, buy hey, your christmas shopping just got a whole lot easier!

You can choose from 3 different designs printed with vegetable derived inks.

Coffee trays not made from paper!

According to Wikipedia, Bagasse is the left-over bio mass when you’ve squeezed all of the juice out of sugarcane. In addition to being explored as feed for live stock and raw material for creating bio fuels, bagasse can also replace paper in many disposable products including cups, trays, plates and bowls. After an exhaustive search I found TreeCycle, purveyors of fine recycled paper products. They sell those little coffee convenience trays that keep you from spilling milk all over your car when you are kind enough to pick up some caffeine for your coworkers. Better yet the trays are made from this material of the gods, bagasse, which happens to be sustainable and biodegradable. Hurray for responsible coffee drinking!

Goodbye plastic bottles!

Looks like the biodegradable plastic bottle is finally here. All those disposable water bottles we just throw in the trash all come from refined crude oil, likely shipped from the Middle East. Innocent is a company with a healthy organic juice product that implements bottles made from modified corn starch. Save them up and put them in your garden instead of ‘recycling’ them like regular plastic bottles.