The Reusable Cup Trend is Out of Control
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- čas přidán 23. 04. 2024
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Script: Holly
Editor: Sam
Project Manager: Lurana McClure Rodríguez
Host: Levi Hildebrand
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Look at Reusable Cup systems in Germany, such as recup, they do actually work better and better because there is a pool of shared cups used by thousands of coffee shops (mandatory for coffee shops to offer since last year) and you just give back the used cup (dirty) and get your deposit back
Have a look at the ReCup, that at least exists in my area in Germany and is basically identical to the London one you talked about
No
If u naw vbe o nuredsaty me dis tar Nak futer praf
I just want to grab the shoulders of these “Stanley collectors” who have 150 of the same reusable cup and shake them screaming “It’s supposed to be REUSED!!!”
They should use them first place.
Yet when the next bottle is released in all green for Earth month they gotta cop it 🤦🏻♂
I’ve been wondering what the big deal is about the Stanley cup….one of my friends collects them. Almost everyday she posts on Facebook about her newest one. I don’t get it…what’s so special about it?
The reusability of these cups will persist even when the market for them collapses. Anybody who wanted one will get one for a huge discount, and they can be used for a hundred different purposes beyond holding beverages. There have been and will be worse trends, so while the shallow consumption of this particular one is as stupid in principle as ever, I'm glad it wasn't about collecting live animals or throwing glitter bombs into rivers.
@@helenkrane6313 The irony is that there isn't anything special about them. There used to be, but now there are too many other similar items that perform virtually identically. Collecting is all about social acceptance and/or scratching a mental itch, and people are better at self-justification than any other species
I used to work at Starbucks Canada and realized very few people know we also serve the drinks in regular mugs/tea cups/glasses. It’s not very popular so we don’t offer that option if you don’t specifically ask for it. If you’re planning on staying in the cafe to enjoy your drink, definitely ask for those! It’s a great way of saving resources and the baristas might surprise you with latte art! ☕️
So true! The disposable is just the default sadly 😢
In the uk, if your buying a hot drink and eating in they serve it to you in a mug!
my favourite thing was a sign I saw at an airport Starbucks the other day (as if we need more reasons to be mortified at Starbucks), next to the bins, saying: "customers are kindly reminded that ceramic and glassware used for sit-down service is not disposable"
🤦🤦🤦
TIL getting your drinks in a mug isn't the norm outside the UK?!? Wtf.
@@melbapeach162lol it’s very much a mom and pop coffee shop kind of thing in the US nowadays 🫤
I did know about the mugs at the ‘bucks and when I was really hanging out at my local one working during the panini, I used to always get them. The baristas would always give me free refills or drinks too, probably because if it. And I have gotten latte art from them before
"Make Coffee at Home".
Right! Make coffee at home and use a travel mug to carry it with you! It saves money, time, and the environment, at least a little bit. It adds up!
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For real. I make coffee in a moka pot every morning, bring it with me to work in a travel mug, and never buy coffee when I'm out and about unless I didn't wake up in my own bed (aka traveling, which is rare). I have a small collection of travel mugs and all get used on a regular rotating basis. Can't imagine having to make time to go camp out in a line every morning at a cafe or drive-through to fork out money daily for coffee.
Consumerism 💀
I said this to our (24yo?) apprentice at some point and she looked at me like I suggested some kind of genocide.
I used my water bottles for years and I'll keep using them until they're absolutely unusable/damaged beyond repair.
Me too. This video started out talking about water bottles, and then switched to coffee.
Some water bottles are designed for hot beverages and some are not.
I have a Blender Bottle for water and a Contigo for coffee, etc.
treat your bottles how i treat my [REDACTED] i respect that.
I hated buying new water-bottles, and only did after I learned that the ones I had didn't really fit in any of the bottle holders on my bicycle. The ones I use... TKWide Klean Kanteens will be used until they can't be anymore. There are new designs that get released that I like, but drinkware is not a fashion accessory(I'm a girl with multiple Rx frames).
Also, I use water bottles at home, on the go, everywhere. Life needs less clutter.
Same here. My only water bottle is covered in scrapes and dents, half the paint is gone, and it no longer sits flat on a table. I'm using ti until it falls apart.
I would.....but I lose mine all the time. BUT I use 'em exclusively....until I lose them. And now a days I get my 'new' bottle from the thrift store so hopefully that balances out.
No joke, the last time I brought a reusable cup into my local Tims, they took a disposable cup to make the coffee, poured it from that cup into my reusable one, then threw out the disposable cup. Why did I even bother at that point?
true
They stir it in the cup, which would mean a bit of leftover coffee/backwash would theoretically be transferred between everyone's mugs. Whether it's enough to give the next person herpes or something with those temps, I couldn't say, but I get the covid-spurned precaution.
When I was barista we only did this with lattes/cappuccino because the cup size themselves is how we measure the size of the coffee. There is no way of knowing the size. Why they didn't use a ceramic cup is just lazy. 🤷
Same thing at Mickie D's, for just boiling water for a cup of tea. Boiling water into the disposable cup, pour into wife's travel mug, toss the single-use cup. My wife and I looked at each other like "What just happened?" And they didn't even want to do that...we got a bit of grimacing and reluctance. It seems to be some kind of company policy...perhaps borne from the pandemic. I don't get it...haven't we moved on?
So don't go.
There's a zero waste coffee shop in Brooklyn called IXV, and they have a basket of what they call "community cups." Customers can donate mugs they no longer want or use, and then people who need to order a coffee "to go" and didn't bring their own reusable cup can get the coffee in a "community cup" and take it with them. If the mugs never make it back to the cafe, it isn't a hit to the business' bottom line because they were donated in the first place, it reduces the number of single-use compostable cups they have to give out, and the people donating the mugs know they're going to continue being used instead of maybe sitting on a thrift store shelf before heading to landfill. It seems like a win-win-win as far as I'm concerned. It would be an amazing model for more cafes to adopt!
I moved to Croatia recently and the coffee drinking culture here is massively different. Everybody drinks coffee either at home or from tiny espresso mugs at coffee shops, where people go and sit for hours just chilling. No giant to-go cups on sight.
Naturally, you can't find a Starbucks (or similar) anywhere.
Yet another European victory 🤷🏻♂💪
As a Croat, I'd like to know why did you move here?
@@FutureProofTV In Slovenia the same. No plastic cups, (no overrated starbucks), no plastic plates at dinner, .... We all use glass, china, cutlery,....
As someone who's about to apply for a Croatian visa and who hates disposable cups, this gives me a good deal of hope.
Same in Slovakia, coffee is to sit down and to chill and just chat and not do anything, not to run with it around town like madmen...
We do have exchangeable "keep cup" programs in Germany in a bunch of cities. You pay a fee for the cup and get it back when you return the cup. And you can return it at every coffee place that is part of the program, which makes things a lot easier.
The IKEA bistro in my city has the same type of cups too now. They even have a machine that spits out your 50 Cents when you insert your empty cup.
I live here in the USA, and I wish every business was more like Ikea!
Love this in Germany
Meinen Sie „Recup“ Mehrwegbecher?
just like at a Weihnachtsmarkt for Glühwein - I imagine you have had this kind of thing for a while
@@prajwalpingali Genau!
Australian here, absolutely can confirm your "Keep cup" anecdote. They are ubiquitous in office spaces throughout Sydney!
We love them in Queensland too! EDIT: My circle of friends and work mates tend to use 'Keep Cup' for the coffee style travel mug and 'Thermos' for a insulated bottle, (hot or cold).
I wouldn't say it's synonymous with "travel mug" though, more like a stand-in for "reusable cup" (i.e. you wouldn't throw it in your bag and expect it to not leak). I feel like we still use "thermos" mostly for any insulated bottle with a screw on lid (at least my family does!).
Never heard the term in my life. Not confirmed.
Yeah the whole reusable cup trend is definitely big here in Australia, but the "Keep-Cup" term isnt really used by anyone to refer to reusable cups/mugs. We still largely call them Thermos' around Sydney.
as a Melbournian (where KeepCup is from), can confirm it is a generic term here now. like Esky!
I went to Tim Hortons with my reusable mug. The clerk said they weren't allowed to serve beverages in anything other than Tim Hortons single use cups, and I could pour it back into my mug myself if I wanted to. Then they proceeded to add a thermal sleeve to my cup. I haven't been back since and make much better coffee at home.
I would have walked right out the door after telling them that I prefer not to spend my money on businesses that use only disposables solely for the sake of convenience
* adds this to list of reasons to make coffee at home *
Tim Horton tastes bad, is ugly, and their mother dresses them funny. Last choice. Only use them if I must.
Some stores doesn’t get I bought my Yeti Rambler so I can keep my smoothie cold but they decline cause of contamination but it’s clean. I always keep it clean before going out….
I took a clean Starbucks reusable I got as a Christmas gift to a Starbucks. They made a coffee, poured it into a disposable and when finished fixing it up then poured it into the cup I brought and threw the disposable away. 😐😐😐 I haven't gone back after the gift card ran out, too pricey and the 711 has blueberry coffee which tastes a whole lot better and they don't care what cup you use 😂
All the hype around a "cup" is wildd 😭
IFKR
didn't even come with 2 girls
@@bloodlove93😂😂😂😂
Understatement of the century. It is depressing, f***ed up, or any other word you can use to describe the failure of humanity.
@@kenshinjennawhat are you on about
we still have the italian coffe culture in italy, it's very unusual to see people take their coffees to go. The reusable bottles are popular among office workers, as most offices tend to have water coolers (which is cheaper than buying bottled water every single time).
Starbucks also does espresso style coffee in italy, and most italians (i include myself) who go there take their espresso right at the bar and not to go.
Most coffee places don't even have the option to take it to go (I live in Milan, not some villages in the mountain). You either drink it right there, or you can take a seat and drink it more slowly. Take away is not really an option now that I think of that.
I'm trying to imagine people here in Ireland taking their Guinness from the pub in a paper cup to take on their commute.
I saw one touristy place in Florence do espresso to go but most people don't do that. Espresso is small so even if you're in a hurry it doesn't take that long to finish one.
This is great news! Perhaps these kinds of atmosphere/community based consumer habits will get popular again in response to the current disposable trend?
I’m actually looking for Italian style coffee shops where I live and it’s so hard to find!
When I first went into a Dunkin donuts in Quebec back in 03 they only had ceramic mugs. No traveling coffee. Since then it's all changed, but I did get to see it for a bit and it was nice.
One of the issues is that a lot of coffee shops give you the side eye if you bring your own cup. I've been on the receiving end of that and it's very uncomfortable.
YUP!
This has been my experience also. Either they make it in a disposable and pour it into your cup (tossing their disposable) or they refuse to use the reusable cup. A coffee shop that wanted to help make “reusable” a thing could do so easily. I just don’t ever see it.
Home brewed coffee at home with $10 insulated mug from Walmart. Used it for over a year at this point saving time and money.
Walmart cups arent even that bad, id rather pay $10 for a knock off that does the same thing. Stanley is just a status symbol
Not Australian but I know that Keepcup has become a big thing in my UK university city (Oxford). Pretty much every library only allows Keepcups for hot drinks, every college/library/university entity has their own Keepcup design, and you can get a discount for bringing your own cup pretty much everywhere. Oxford loves these things!
Well that's good to hear! 5 points for Griffindor!
They only allow a specific brand?
Hahahaha I got a Keepcup because the Bodleian only allowed it, then I got another with my college logo. That kinda started my journey!
@@olivermead415 Techincally yeah, because our libraries and their collections are super old I think they really like the stopper design bc it can reduce damage to the books if a drink is spilled. In practice this doesn't always work (Keepcup stoppers aren't the most reliable), and you can sneak in other sealable hot drink containers for sure, but it basically ensures that there aren't a load of to-go cups sitting on the desk at risk of damaging the collections or furniture!
@@israellai Aha yeah! My college keepcup literally does not leave my bag 🦌
Hey Levi, a fellow Victoria-area resident here! Just to give your producer some credit: that cup has the BPI certification logo which means it IS actually "compostable" - meaning you can chuck it in your kitchen scraps bin and it does meet the standards to be composted at our local Hartland landfill :)
*Pro tip*: if you DO see that logo on a product, you CAN compost it through a municipal waste facility (at least in most of BC, Canada I'd imagine, though folks from other places should check out their local guidelines to see if they'd be accepted where they live too). If you DON'T see THAT SPECIFIC BPI logo do NOT put it in the compost, even if it has the word "compostable" or "biodegradable" on it (like those pesky cutlery items that say "compostable" on them but have no certification label). It most likely has NOT been certified and should be thrown in the GARBAGE (sadly).
One big problem with composting/recycling systems, is that people (often with good intentions) try and compost/recycle things that actually can't be properly processed (PB jars are a big culprit). If a load of recycling or compost has too many things in it that don't meet the requirements, it "contaminates" the load, and waste processors may have to throw the ENTIRE load in the garbage (even the actual compostable veggie scraps or cleaned recyclable glass containers) because it's too expensive to filter that stuff out. If you're not sure if something is compostable/too lazy to check and/or clean your recycling, you're better off throwing it in the trash than potentially contaminating a whole load of others' correctly disposed of compost/recycling (source: I work in an adjacent field where I do public education on this kind of stuff and have had multiple conversations with our local waste management staff).
Fun fact I learned last year while touring Hartland landfill - paper cups with plastic linings (rinsed/cleaned) can be recycled with the "mixed containers" stream :) they give public tours of the facility - maybe worth bringing this show on the road and giving Hartland a visit and getting the inside scoop on various FAQs!
The town I used to live in had a small coffee shop that had every drink in glass jars (with lids, and coozies for the warm drinks) and when you’d return them, they gave you a dollar off. They didn’t have paper cups at all. It was so wonderful! It was our favorite place by far and I miss it so much.
Meh I hate all of this stuff. Im not carrying a portable mug with me everywhere I go.
Please serve my coffee in a mug or teacup, thank you. Not everything needs to be "To go".
Yesssssss!!!!!!!!!
Yeah it's just relaxing sitting down, enjoying your coffee with maybe a piece of cake and slow life down for a min.
I got one to keep my coffee hot at home. I have two kids under two and trying to enjoy coffee hot in a regular mug was impossible 😂
From the perspective of a business, that also means the shop will now have to collect, clean, and disinfect those cups. So logistically, it’s cheaper to just keep buying paper cups than to gain another payroll to have a person run the dishwasher.
Nothing I hate more than walking around with a scalding hot cup of coffee in my hand! I would much rather take 15 minutes to sit and have conversation while sipping from a real old fashioned mug that can be handed back in and washed. How did we go from going to a coffee shop to have a coffee to having to have on in our hands while we walk around? And in some cases end up soaked in coffee by a passerby also in a hurry bumping into you? Everybody needs to chill and remember a time when life was slower and interacting with real people mattered.
I fill a big-ass thermos with instant coffee every morning, which is absolutely the most environmentally sustainable way to drink coffee.
From my experience people use keepcups for the coffee they make at home and drink in the car not for actually using for a coffee purchased at a store , which is usually a more impulse purchase when out and about.
I purchased a glass bottle, I dropped it, and it broke. I then purchased an insulated aluminum bottle and dropped it and it didn't break.
That's the entirety of my reusable bottle purchases over the last 10 years.
mine can no longer stand up but it also doesnt roll off the table if you have it sit on the specific dent on the side so... its fine.
I have a stainless steel contigo bottle for water that I crushed between the battery and the grate of a ride-on pallet jack. It’s probably not 20 ounces anymore. But it is still insulated and works. I also have a spare control ready to go when it finally dies.
@@chovue2363 just hammer the bottom in with something
The funniest/saddest/angriest part is that the Stanley craze is basically dead and a lot of second hand places are full of them.
So much money wasted and these microtrends that Tiktok births are really pathetic and ridiculous.
Some of us are still using that kind of product every day. Mine is a less fashionable brand, I guess, but I don't care about that.
We have a whole episode coming out soon about microtrends and you're right on the money!
@@FutureProofTV I'll be seated! Keep up the good work.
@@someguy2135 same! I have a thermal water bottle, no brand, and I've been using it for years. I hated plastic water bottles. But so many people don't get the point of a stainless steel bottle/cup.
@@FutureProofTV Cant wait for that.
A gas station chain in my area started offering reusable cups. You pay for it once and then you can have it refilled or exchanged for a freshly washed reusable cup everytime you buy coffee. If you don't want it anymore, you can turn it in and get your money back. In the beginning you'd get a small discount (1 €) if you used a reusable mug (theirs or your own), but now it's all the same price.
Most people absolutely don't realize that it's work to re use stuff. I was an early adopter of re useable grocery bags. I would cheerfully take my bag of re useable bags into the grocery store. I had noticed that the cashiers and bag packers would be less then thrilled. One day, I finally asked and they told me that they hated the re useable bags as they were generally filthy and nasty. I was shocked and assumed them that my bags were always machine washed after each use. They said that I was definitely a minority as most people didn't ever clean them. This may have contributed to the increase in self checkout as then you can deal with your own mess.
We here in Germany have a similar model to the prufrock coffee cup. It’s called ReCup and implemented by many different coffee shops. Some cities or destinations print a greeting on their cups like “greetings from …” or “… says hello” and that’s really cool because we’ve had cups from many parts of the country at our coffee shop so far. They also come in different sizes.
But not even half of the people coming in want the reusable cups, and the majority of those who do already have one.
And maybe another component is that we are already specialized on sustainable products so people who come in are probably already more aware of the issues than at a regular place.
There has also only been one person in the last three months who brought their own cup (which technically couldn’t be used because it didn’t fit under the dispenser part of our coffee machine)
Was looking for exactly this comment. An addition, even big companies like Burger King are now participating in Recup. Plus there are also similar programs for takeaway containers, though this isn't as widespread as recup and is often a bit of a financial burden for some people as the deposit for those containers tends to be higher (like 10 EUR, Recup has a 1 EUR deposit).
That is so cool, I love that they have their origin on them!
I saw the other comment describing ReCup here (I asked if it was an extension of _Mehrweg_ ) and it was only _after_ asking that comment I remembered about the beer cups (Likewise _pfand mit_ ) used at Wacken and other outdoor events. 🍻🎸🤘
Fc🇬🇧...Me forgetting about something as well understood as that *proves* that Brexit has completely shot my brain to 💩. (And before anyone asks: _Wählt Ich „Remain“..._ 🗳🇪🇺❤🔥)
@@dieseldragon6756 yes, its essentially the same as the beer cups at concerts👍
it sucks because i've had coffee shops, when told i'm having my coffee and sandwich there, give me a disposable to-go cup but put the sandwich on a plate.
I can confirm that “KeepCup” is synonymous to reusable coffee cup in Australia, especially in Melbourne where KeepCup was founded.
Here’s another problem; I bring my clean reusable coffee mug only to see the person behind the counter use a disposable cup as a measuring tool and then they discard it. It left me thinking why bother bring my cup when there’s water whether I am mindful or not.
My city tried a cup tax. It didn't go over very well and was cancelled after nine months or so. There was a massive backlash to the cup tax. Cafes were discounting the price of coffee to compensate for the extra $0.25 they were forced to charge for the cup.
And isn't not like those cups cost that amount so the business isn't losing any money
australian here!! yep, pretty much every kind of reusable/travel mug is a keepcup!! regardless of brand!!
I wonder how the number of reusable cups being used differs from coffee stops to gas stations. An early visit to the gas station and you'll see tons of blue collar workers getting ready for work and I guarantee you'll see most of them using reusable cups. It wasn't until this video that I realized my dad always uses his camo reusable cup everywhere he goes. Just an interesting thought i got from this video! Interesting topic!
Can't solve consumer habit issues with new products. If a customer has to change or improve a habit to make the product "green", it will almost never work.
i think a huge part is probably marketing, i never would have even thought coffee shops would allow you to bring your own cup.
this is the earliest i think i've ever been to a video lol
I got my own reusable water bottle from a thrift shop. it's shaped like a normal plastic bottle but the top screws off before it narrows towards the cap, letting me put cubes and fruit and whatever inside without crushing everything through the little top. makes it much easier to clean, too!
Hell yeah! That was my first bottle too! (klean kanteen)
There’s a small local chain called Boston Tea Party in the UK which do a similar keep cup exchange scheme. You give them £1 as a deposit then you can just keep swapping them.
They also won’t actually sell you a coffee in a paper cup to encourage people to bring their own (or to loan one!)
Thrift shops and second hand stores are filled with crappy reusable cups, mugs, and bottles. They're all going to end up being thrown away, slowly breaking down into microplastics and degrading chemicals that leech into the ground.
I've picked up my mom's habit of reusing to-go cups and containers until they're literally cracked or mangled. Many of them are as thermally stable as the reusable products we buy.
I reuse one-use coffee cups 2-3 times, too.
I feel that there is a significant overlap in the customers who purchase reusable mugs and the customers who make coffee at home. Looking at the use of reusable mugs at to-go locations only will skew the data.
As a Stanley cup owner, one Stanley per person is more than enough. They hold temperature very well. 40 oz quencher holds you enough liquid from half a day to all day. I use it for hot tea and it works perfect. YOU DONT NEED 150 OF THEM
Probably the only reason you need more than one is as a backup.
As the heavy-handed git who's responsible for 85% of the UKs instant coffee consumption, a 150oz (4,68l) Stanley would be surprisingly useful to me... ☕☕☕☕☕🇬🇧😁
Talking from Brazil and most cafes just gives you a little porcelain coffee cup, only Starbucks does not BUT it is also closing too - they didn’t adapt to our cafézinho culture, people go to coffee shops drink a cup of it that is cheap (and better imo), get some snack which is the more expensive part but still accessible to us, unlike Starbucks that everything is expensive for NO REASON
Eu gosto do duckbill, que só tem copos de vidro como opção, e o café é melhor que starbucks :D
I worked at Starbucks and any drive-thru orders for people who brought their own cup were made in the disposable cups and then poured into the personal cup. 🤦🏼♀️ Waiting to make the drink until we had the personal cup in hand made drive thru times "unacceptably" long.
Where I'm from they still pour everything on a single-use cup and then pour the contents into my reusable one (then throw the single-use away). When I asked why, they said the single-use cups had to be "used" because that's how their bosses knew they weren't "stealing"
Surely that could be solved by a brew counter or water consumption meter on the coffee machine?
@@dieseldragon6756 It would better be solved by not treating your employees as if they already committed a crime. It's not a good work culture. The coffee is marked way up anyway, the actual beans themselves aren't expensive. It also makes no sense to use disposable cups to prevent ''stealing'' as an employee can just fill a cup with coffee, drink it, and then throw THAT out. They'll soon find out if someone is necking gratis espressos day in day out when there's shrinkage.
I've seen people stop using their reusable cups because they got tired of washing them. Laziness is definitely a big factor here.
Back when I lived in the northern suburbs of NYC, we had a traditional tea shop in my town, where you had to sit down and enjoy your tea. The only "grab and go" was bags of loose leaf tea to take home. The owner of that cafe was offered what most would consider the keys to Camelot, a space on the Hudson river, right next to the train station. She refused it because she said everyone would except their tea in disposable cups to take on the train, and that was no way to enjoy tea. Always admired her for that.
Honestly in Germany there is one amazing thing, Recup. You buy coffee in Recup cup, pay lil extra for deposit and just keep using and reusing cup until you decide to bring it back and get the deposit of a cup back. I have special edition "Recup Hey Kölle" cup and honestly its my fave reusable cup so I guess for me it will be hard to return cup to get back the deposit. But yes if I can I always bring my reusable Recup cup to coffee shops and try my best to less use the disposable ones.
One massive problem I keep encountering is that the person at the register often doesn't know how large the cup I have is and then get confused.
Also, when you use an app to pre-order the whole "bring your own cup" thing kinda doesn't work.
Having said that: I mostly don't really buy coffee "to go" anymore. If I do that, I usually just make it at home and take it with me.
Meanwhile I still have the MLP metal cup I got for free when the G4 movie first came out. It's child sized, but most places allow me to refill them anyways.
Ive had the same stainless steel double wall togo cup for 8 years now. It sure has character now.
I'm still using my plastic souvenir tumbler I got in Alaska in 2005.
Last year all of us employees received an insulated travel coffee mug from our office. And tho I was hesitant at first I kinda grew to like it.
on their path to more sustainability, our employer slowly got rid of disposable papercups. you can only find them here and there anymore, hidden in a drawer. but people either bring their own mugs to the office (like me) or they use a regular cup and throw it in the dishwasher later on.
I also use my insulated water bottle a lot, either in the office or at home.
so it's something, at least.
wait so did you use paper cups to drink coffee inside your office when you had normal ones available?
The problem for the corps. with re-usable good is that potentially you can only sell it once.
The funny thing is that it just means the business model sucks and innovation is needed.
The whole "corporate" excuse really just boils down to idiotic short-sighted greed.
It's true you'll have a longer wait time before a costumer's next buy however it's worth it. The costumer see that brand name each time they sip from the cup or whatever and if the product is good quality they'll most likely start to become loyal to that brand and product.
I know in my own life my sister recommended me cloth menstrual cycle pads in a 5 pack, she told me the brand I bought it and it's been 3 years now I still have them in bathroom and you better believe when that day comes and the fabric rips or it's no longer useable ... I will buy that same product. It's consumerism but a different approach.
In India most tea and coffee sellers, that are not affiliated with foreign brands, they use Kullhad, clay cups. Cheaply made from clay and blasted in a furnace for a nice reddish orange earthy look and disposable. Crush it and it becomes mud. These cups are called Kullhad. These are usually called clay or teracota cups in english but searching for Kullhad gives better results.
Just after watching this video I started to wonder if clay or terracotta cups could work. I've seen terracotta cups used for serving Glühwein (Mulled wine) at German Christmas markets, but an immediately re-formable clay cup (i.e: Use it, crush it, make a new cup with it) would have to be without glaze, and I could see many consumers not liking that...
@@dieseldragon6756 well it might not have the industrialized synthetic look that the west is used to. It's more earthy. But there are some technical strengths in an unglazed cup. The air pockets inside the clay would be able to stop some heat from reaching your hand in a hot drink. And if it is made extra porous, the cup will absorb a little moisture from the drink and start evaporating it from the outer surface, keeping a cold drink cooler for long.
In India, people also use teracota pots in summers to store water and it naturally gets as cool as refrigerated water just with this evaporation.
A lot of coffee shops in Germany use Recups, which follow the principle of "bring a dirty cup, get a fresh one with your coffee". You pay an extra euro when you first get one, and you get that euro back if you return a cup without refilling. It works very very well, because you don't have to go back to the one coffee place and remember to have the recup with you, you can return your cups almost anywhere.
The "Pfand" system is really widespread here (you pay extra money for your drink container, which you get back when you return said container to the store to be reused or recycled) and I really do believe it's the only way to go.
Maybe the only way to fix people using reusable cups more would be to get people to always have a backpack with them, and somehow fix the cleaning issue.... Maybe have a way to clean cups at coffee shops? Or use some kind of wipes that could clean cups? And make the wipes compostable?
The only problem is some places refuse to let you bring in bags, bottles, and other things…. Two years ago I tried to bring in my metal water bottle full of water and was told I couldn’t bring it in. It was empty at the time…..
IME all that's really needed to clean a mug/cup out enough to make it acceptable for poured drinks (Filter coffee, water for tea etc) is just plain clean water. If you rinse your reusable cup out as soon as possible once it's empty there'll be less likelihood of dried dregs forming at the bottom, and it'll make washing up at the end of the day a lot more straightforward. 👍
I typically rinse coffee mugs out between brews, but being mindful of water conservation I've managed to get this down to just 10ml (1/3 US fl. oz) of water each time. Simply let sit in the bottom of the mug for a moment to hydrate any dregs, swill around gently to soak up all of the coffee material into the water, increase the vigorousness of the swilling to rinse the interior walls of the mug, then pour out into the sink. Bonus points if you can master catching some of the water in your hand to rinse off the „lip gloss“ from the top of the mug. ☕💯👍
I'm sure all the ocean life will appreciate us humans switching to reusable cups once they go out of style and are floating around in the Pacific Ocean. 🤣🙁
"that waste is SO out of style!" not a single tik-toker ever
One upside is that while there's oodles of pollution from the metal cups.... there's a lot less microplastic.
If coffee shops had a cleaning mug station more people would use their reusable cups.
i think one thing people arent really understanding wrt reusable mugs is the health risk. if youre just bringing it in for some drip coffee, no big deal. but if you want a specialty latte that needs to be mixed in any way, it opens up hazards that just arent present when using a disposable cup. so many times as a barista, i had customers come in with the dirtiest mugs, and even after giving them a rinse it still didnt feel right to mix the drink in it. often times we would just use a disposable cup for those orders and then pour the drink into the reusable one at the end.
Out of curiosity: Do the same concerns present if the customer is buying filter coffee, which (One imagines) can be poured straight into the cup from the brewing jug? 😇
@@dieseldragon6756 that is what is being referred to by "drip coffee."
@@yurigakuen Ah, sorry - It's usually sold as „Filter coffee“ in this part of the UK. 😇
Mind you, some of those differences can be hilarious at times. The expression on most British people's faces when handed a (North American) „biscuit“ is truly meme-worthy! 🤣
(We call those „Scones“ and ours are normally sweet, not plain. What we call „Biscuits“ are the same as the French « Petit Fours »... 😇)
No, this trend needs to *keep going.* That way, the overpriced mugs will end up in thrift shops everywhere and people with just a few dollars to spare who want a half-decent water bottle can get their hands on it at a _steep_ discount.
Depreciation may mark down their value, but the one thing which _cannot_ be deprecated is its utility, and _that_ is invaluable.
Fam.. it's just a cup. You act like it's some breakthrough technology lol
I'm an 80s/90s kid and we all had water bottles. We had Thermoses in our lunchboxes. So I never felt that the reusable cup was that big of a deal. I got my Yeti-like copycat at Wally World and have used it for years. I "upgraded" to a Stanley copycat when said other tumbler took a literal tumble off the roof of my car onto the concrete. Now that gets used daily.
The collectors are just weird, though.
I've had a coffee shop refuse to make the coffee in my reusable cup. They wouldnt even make it normally and pour it into my cup, i had to do it.
Something about not being allowed to touch orr stuff.
Thank you for another great video. I intentionally left the house earlier today to have time to sit at a nice coffee shop before catching a train. It is so much more enjoyable to have your coffee/tea from an actual cup and just people watch. Sometimes we are in a hurry, and need to do to-go, but maybe we can all try to slow down and just enjoy small moments and be more sustainable at the same time.
When it comes to disposable cups and plastic bags, I think governments need to step in and force their ban. If those one-time use plastics weren't an option and you were forced to buy a reusable bag or mug every time you went out for groceries or coffee, I guarantee you'd only make the mistake a couple times before bringing your own bags/mug becomes ingrained in your memory. It would suck for two weeks as everyone learns, but once the habit of remembering to bring your own bags/mug forms, life would continue on as normal while dramatically reducing our plastic consumption.
my state banned plastic bags years ago
I think most people would just stop buying coffee
UK viewer here, and I think I can confirm it _hasn't_ worked like this for us. HM Government banned single use carrier bags shortly after the UK left the EU, making _Bag for Life¹_ or stronger bags at-cost the only option open to the shopper who doesn't bring their own with them.
IME many British shoppers buy a new _Bag for Life¹_ whenever they go shopping (They're usually 30p each) and I see a lot of them being used as rubbish bags or straight-up being thrown away after just one use, which kinda defeats the whole circular intent behind the _Bag for Life_ system. 🛍🗑🤔
(¹ - Our reusable carrier bag scheme, which is similar in some ways to the German _Mehrwegsystem_ but without any returnable deposits. One buys a bag if they need one, then the idea is that they _keep_ the bag and use it again and again on later shopping trips. Once the bag is worn out to the point it needs to be disposed of, one takes it back to any store in that chain and it'll be replaced without charge, hence the _for life_ bit. (Worn out bags are recycled into new bags)) 👍
@@dieseldragon6756 That sounds like what California did to a lesser extent. Stores can’t use those extremely flimsy plastic bags, so they instead sell you thicker plastic bags that technically could be reused, but hardly anyone does. And people treat them like disposable bags because they are 10¢ a bag. That makes me suspect it’s the price point which is too lenient and not bringing the desired change. If those Bag for Life bags were higher durability and sold at £2.50 per bag, people would be much less inclined to keep buying them as disposable bags and more likely to remember to bring their own when they shop.
@@saladmcjones7798 Aye, the price point is probably part of the issue. What makes changing that hard is the fact the UK has a _significant_ disparity in social wealth...So while £2,50 might be a perfectly reasonable charge for the blue-collar workers who abuse them, those of us in statute poverty who use them _properly_ would never be able to afford the fee to get one in the first place.
And of course; There are certain kinds of _Membership card_ you can wave around in the UK to get exemptions to the rules. Unfortunately, I'm not talking about cards for Veterans, Police or other people who genuinely warrant them... 🇬🇧🛂💰🤔
I feel like the solution is to adress the broader problem of hustle culture and rat race, and turn coffee shops back from shops to social spaces. I don't care what kinda career you're building. It's not healthy to not have time for a cup of coffee until you retire.
In the UK we had a similar problem with single use plastic bags in supermarkets,the introduction of a 30p pricetag per disposable bag has massively helped to reduce the number of bags made and inevitably dropped on the streets.
Something similar for disposable drink cups could probably have the same affect. Not just a small positive for using a reusable mug but actively punishing people for not doing so.
I have several reusable cups and water bottles that I found on the ground (they were obviously not placed there, and were lost) while walking/biking around. It's amazing how much perfectly good stuff I've found while out and about that people either lost or are giving away but isn't noticed because most people are in vehicles speeding around without taking in their environment.
I saw a nice one in the middle of the road yesterday, sadly couldn't stop for it 😮
Paying $5-10 for coffee every day is unsustainable for personal finances. People who care about having sustainable life make coffee themselves or use the office coffee machine.
I like re-usable mugs for my own coffee. I make my coffee, it's in the mug, it goes with me, then it sits in my truck for the rest of the day because I finish it on my drive, then I take it in when I get home and wash it. What I would never do, is plan on stopping for coffee so having that heavy multi-use option in my bag (or even in my vehicle, because then it gets dirty AF) at all times IN CASE I want a coffee. I would especially _never_ put a re-usable coffee cup that was dirty in a bag, because I've had entirely to many things leak.
My re-usable coffee cups reduce my footprint by reducing the number of times I go into coffee shops, at all, to begin with.
A major coffee chain in my city (named after a Canadian hockey player) would happily put your coffee order into a reusable mug. First they would pour the coffee into the correct size disposable cup then pour that into your reusable mug and would throw out the disposable. I asked the server why they did this and was told that they needed to be sure you got the size you ordered. Absolutely bonkers.
My choice: Borosilicate glass water bottle. ❤️✨️
My partner used to carry a glass water bottle that he repurposed, but they kept breaking when he dropped them, or when they got knocked off the table, etc. No he uses a metal travel mug, like I do.
How many times do you break it per day 💀
@@Zembie1 Couldn’t be more than once a day, I imagine.
Dutch gouverment buildings has guest cups near the entrance, you can use them the whole day, and return them when leaving.
In the Netherlands politicians had the idea to do this on another level. They where trying to make us bring a cooking pan to a snackbar, to put the french fries in.
It ended up with a small tax on every disposable container
Probably not the solution for _everyone,_ but for anybody who's served in the Army they could always bring their mess tins with them... 💡
In fact: I'm neither Army nor live in the Netherlands (My country's a good 50 years behind yours, politically 🇬🇧) but things like that are available to civilians here, too. I think I might start carrying a set around for takeaways... 🙂
As an Aussie, i can confirm that the Keep Cup is its own status symbol. If you see someone holding a reusable coffee cup, whether that be by Keep Cup or anyone else, that person is an on-trend, environmentally conscious coffee drinker.
"Go out for coffee"? WTF?! Make coffee at home. And stop buying every trendy thing someone waves in your face.
As a Dutch person, I know these brands exist, but I’ve never actually seen them. Around every Dutch person has a Dopper, Dutch made reusable bottle brand, personally I’ve had mine for around 15 years and it’s still holding up to this day.
I work at Delft University of technology. Since a year or so, all the coffee places on campus switched to the so called "Billie cup". Also, there are NO disposable cups anymore, you HAVE to buy one (1 euro). After use, you can switch your cleaned or dirty cup for a coin, or you can trade the cup or the coin in when getting a new cup of coffee. It is much like your example on prufrock.
We should be bragging about how long we’ve owned things…
I don't even think most people in the USA know what it actually feels like to be thirsty...they're just drinking water/beverages for fun or because they think they need to 😭
most UK people don't know either :(
i mean you do need to drink water
I'm American and honest we don't typically have a drink on us most of the time. Most of the people I know will wait hours after they first become thirst to get something drink.
I have tried to get Starbucks to serve coffee into my reusable cups, but ever since the pandemic, they have a strict policy against taking any items from the customer. Whenever I ask, they say they can't accept it, but they can serve it to me in a plastic cup so that I can then pour it myself into the reusable one (bcz that is the solution??). The other day, I asked for more ice in the coffee I already purchased and they couldn't accept the disposable cup I already used so they gave me ice in a brand new plastic cup!
Mine has gone back to allowing reusable cups. They even have an option on the mobile order to use a reuseable cup, though I don’t love that this means they dump your latte into the cup. You also get additional “stars” if you use a reusable cup.
I never understood people who collect DOZENS of the same cup for no apparent reason other than the sake of collecting… like I have three different Hydro Flask items that serve different purposes: 16 oz tumbler for coffee/tea, 20 oz bottle to take with me, 42 oz bottle in my room for use every day. it baffles me how they think it’s a good idea to not only waste so much money but also resources on something that started off with noble intentions
"throwaway culture" exists because it existed throughout history. it just wasn't a problem at all back in the times where all we could throw away was stuff that'd biodegrade in relatively short periods of time, and wasn't produced by a high-impact industrial complex.
My uncle thinks he's a "liberal" and insists that I'm a "good conservative" yet even as a kid, it was incredibly obvious to me how wasteful bottled water was. It was also incredibly obvious to me that buying a 2 dollar used one at Goodwill is the most environmentally friendly way to do it. Even though I was the one with a pro environment worldview, I grew up around people who claimed I was a "climate change denier" yet they bought a new car every few years and didn't repair things that were easily repairable, thus having a signficantly higher carbon footprint than me, a kid who stood out because they remembered that the scientific method exists (it's scary that you can be bullied for "denying climate change" just for pointing out that the predictions will change, since the scientific method exists, and that historically most climate predictions have been inaccurate, especially in the 20th century, so there's hope and opportunity to fix our environment and scaring people into caring about the earth with worst case scenario predictions isn't always the best way to get people to care for the environment, especially if those predictions are usually inaccurate) . I was always pro nuclear power, and the political left has blood on their hands for pushing anti science fear mania on the public at the expense of our climate (I'm really happy that we finally have moved past that nonsense and have quietly admitted that Republicans were the real progressives on nuclear power).
Sounds about right.
These knuckleheads only care about what their Climate Priests declare, they don't really care about how wasteful everything else they do is because their Tesla is saving the world.
Funnily enough, Conservatism readily ties in with CONSERVING the environment as well.
what I hate, is I am a truck driver and bring a reusable waterbottles with me for the day. I have been told at many places, while paying for food they will not refill my bottle as a "health consern" and I would have to use the bathroom water. iv had many places fill a single use cup with water, hand it to me to then pour into my own bottle COMPLETLY defeating the point. one location I evently let me hold the bottle over the counter into the sink while they turned the tap on/off. its insane. they simply refuse to touch my normal, clear costco waterbottle.
I'm Australian and I can confirm that keepcup is just used to refer to any reusable coffee cup. I had actually forgotten that they are a brand. The biggest reusable cup and water bottle brand here is probably frank green.
Also my university and some coffee shops in my city participate in a reusable cup borrowing program called green caffeen. I mainly used it pre covid at uni so I'm not sure how popular it still is but the insta is still being updated.
YIPPEEE!!!
Honestly as an Italian I don't get the "coffee to go" culture (it isn't really that popular here). Just sit down and drink your coffee, it takes 5 minutes and it's a good way to relax before or after a long day, does wonders to mental health. Again this is coming from someone from a country where people consider eating food while walking as something only a psychopath would do.
You saying you're Italian basically saying you don't understand the American culture where everything is on the go from drinks to food, thats why people are unhealthy, not just in weight but sleep depravity insomnia etc. Also peer pressure and work culture to drink coffee because in America that the norm, teas aren't. I see some comments from different places outside of America saying similar to what you said but unfortunately this video is really target audience. Im American and I absolutely hate the culture, as I said everything as fast food, school lunches are trash, going ti a convenient store with trash unhealthy food plus bloated prices. Other countries have way better school lunches like Europe and Asia, Asia has healthier cheaper food in convenience stores etc
@@semekiizuio False, you are spreading lies and misinformation. Americans are significantly better off than Italians.
@@semekiizuio I'm English and recently went to Japan and in both these countries the convenience store food is not healthy. They literally have 7-11s in Japan. Europe and Asia aren't monoliths.
@@Schemilix dafuq you going to a 711 lol did you try more local like the family mart? Its like saying you want coffee and go into Starbucks
@@semekiizuio Because the 7/11 was positioned conveniently. Making it, y'know, a convenience store. They're everywhere in Osaka
I have a travel mug, I make coffee in every morning. When it runs out I wash it and had the idea to ask coffee shops to make my coffee on the go in it. and even if I told them I washed it before many refuse to fill my mug and give me a paper cup instead...
This on the go style of drinking coffee never caught up in my part of Europe. Drinking any hot beverage from plastic cup is disgusting, you don't drive everywhere here and drinking + walking is rather uncomfortable... especially when street is narrow and packed with people who are bumping into you AND every respectable company has an espresso machine (or rather several) with free coffee + zillion ceramic espresso cups on hand and a dishwasher next to it so you don't even have to wash that cup. You can see someone sometimes with bottom lip stuck to paper cup pretending they are enjoying their plastic tasting coffee on a bus stop but it is not fashionable at all... you want to hug these people and assure them that everything will get better for them one day and not emulate them.
Aussie here and your video is the first time in about 2 years I have heard the keep cup name.
Ever since I entered a school that allowed us to drink during class, I've always used my water bottles. I also reuse PET bottles that I get from buying a drink once in a while until it's obliterated/starts smelling way too bad.
GRAYL!!! I just returned from 3 weeks in Turkey, Greece, Italy and the Netherlands and I used THIS water bottle multiple times a day!
Granted not for flavored drinks but I saved money and went days without buying plastic bottled water!!
I have a reusable coffee mug, and a water bottle, both insulated stainless steel. Keeps hot or cold as needed, and not throwing away paper or plastic. Stanley is a fashion trend now, only because a viral video showed ice in a travel mug, after surviving a car fire.
Any smart coffee chain has their own travel cup, for free branding and to possibly offer the money saved in the cup as a discount for the customer.
And a quick note for tea lovers, the reason glass is most commonly used for travel, is that stainless steel gets a bit funky after a serving or two. A soak in unflavored denture tablets can help.
Great watch and coverage as always 👊🏿💥
I live in AZ, I have one by a company called Reduce and use for cold drinks while driving. I bought on sale and like 2 years later the paint started to chip, they sent me a brand new one, my choice as mine wasn't made anymore. Yes I'm sure a lot of brands are just trendy but some are legit too.
I once lived in a big, super touristic, Italian city - there was only one caffee there that had coffee in take away cups.
Convenience and price. Who would pay $20 for a reusable cup when the paper one costs 10 cents. Who would carry a dirty mug with themselves the whole day from home to the coffee shop to work to back home?
Btw shouldnt the 100% paper cups degrade relatively fast?
When I go into a coffee shop with my own cup and ask the baristas for a drink in it, they proceed to brew it into one of their disposable cups then pour it into mine.
It’s happened more than once, so I think they’re trained for that specific shape maybe? Also I think it’s easier for them to charge me for the correct size/amount. I still get a surprised pikachu face every time this happens though.
What sucks about my reusable mug is that no shop is willing to rinse it out for me and refill, I have to take my mug into the bathroom somewhere to rinse out. This has made my coffee consumption much lower than my juice consumption, cause I don't need to rinse out the juice cup if it's all the same juice.
I bought a Hydroflask bottle in 2012ish and used it daily for just over a decade before it was time to change it up, so I bought the exact same thing in 2023 and have been using it daily since. With these lasting about a decade each, I hope to have at least 5 or 6 more purchases ahead of me!
I haven’t bought a new reusable cup since I got my stainless steel Starbucks cup when I was 30. I’m 36 now and it’s still going strong! I have one big stainless steel water bottle (spill proof for throwing in a bag) I’ve had for almost 10 years and I got my stainless steel coffee mug for free from work. I use things until they break, not until a new fad comes along. 🤷🏻♀️
Australian here. In my circles KeepCup refers to the brand of reusable cup. We do use thermos to describe the heat retaining container. And we often just use ‘reusable cup’ to describe any reusable canister such as those described above.
Australian here!
Yep! All reuseable mugs are KeepCups, UNLESS, there is a brand on it, such as Frank Green.
A lot of cafes in Aus will actually sell keep cups too and give you a discount for using them, so win win all around