Instead of the single-use paper or plastic cups that Gearhard would usually line up for the barista slinging espresso, he’s passing over shiny new reusable cups that bear the slogan “Sip, Return, Repeat”. Customers who need their lattes to go can take the purple cups with them, then return them to one of 60 bins scattered across downtown Petaluma when they’ve finished. Each cup comes with a trackable QR code to help monitor results.

  • The Pantser@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    Using a thin walled metal cup would be super hot and burn people. But using an insulated metal cup would get people to keep them. Idk how to solve that. Make something safe but worthless enough to return.

    • oce 🐆@jlai.lu
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      Ask people to bring their own washed cup with the appropriate capacity. If they don’t have one, provide them with a reusable cup they have to pay extra for.
      You have to make people pay to overcome the path of least effort that single use plastics opened.
      Just like paid plastic bags in supermarkets, I believe it works well.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      I suspect that making metal insulated cups is cheap these days. Perhaps this could solve that. I doubt people would hoard mountains of them. Then it becomes a matter of paying for the hoarded ones. People hoarded and still do some glass bottles where glass bottle replacement schemes exist/have existed.

      Thinking more on this point, a genuine replacement for single use plastics for beverages could be a soda can equivalent, cheap, double wall aluminum container. If someone can make such a container for low enough cost, that could be a solution since aluminum is infinitely recyclable.