Not a fan of the Starbucks
sippy cup. In order to prevent further straw pollution and be more
eco-friendly, Starbucks has redesigned the lids of their cold drinks to look
and work like adult sippy cups. But this does not work well. When the cold
drinks sit, the liquid sinks and the ice floats. And when the ice sits on top
and the liquid goes to the bottom (as well as the flavor) the first half of the
drink tastes like watered down slush and the last half is way too sweet.
Paper straws or biodegradable
straws would have been so much better. You wouldn’t want to drink a Slurpee
without a straw. That is what it is like drinking a Frappuccino without a
straw. I would much rather have a paper straw or even pay an extra $1 for a
metal straw. You can buy re-usable metal straws in bulk online for like $0.23
each, so they’d be making money off selling metal straws and they’d still be
green. In fact, they could sell branded metal straws and it would get their
brand out as well as being green. It’d be like their reusable coffee mugs but
at a cheaper price point, so if offered whenever someone bought a cold drink
(especially if their other option was straight sippy cup) they are likely to
buy it.
And really, that seems
cheaper than redesigning the lids anyway. Which probably had to go through
testing both on the practicality/utility level as well as customer acceptance
level. And as they make new lids and test the different kinds, that would have
cost money and time. And since I saw at least six people getting straws from somewhere
else (like the nearby Tim Hortons) it isn’t really reducing the waste of
straws.
Sippy cups are not the
solution.
I don’t generally get
Starbucks anyway, though. I generally find it over to be overpriced. For the
same price of just a medium Frappuccino at Starbucks, I can get a large iced cappuccino
and a bagel at Tim Hortons (plus, I like Tim’s Iced Capps better).
