Today: Mar 29, 2024

Starbucks to switch out straws for drinkable lids

Abby EpsteinNews Writer

Starbucks secret is out: they are going strawless. The Starbucks located on the first floor of Buley is throwing away their straws and opting for drinkable lids instead.

“We are transitioning to strawless at Starbucks. We are slowly at each location on campus going to move towards that,” said marketing manager Alexandra Macuada.

Retail Director Desiree Parker said Starbucks wants to start selling metal straws on campus for students to buy.

Starbucks at the moment is still using the tops that require straws because they do not want the product to go to waste. By next fall they will be using only the sip cup lids.

“Whatever product we still have at the end of spring semester we are going to donate to other Starbucks that use the lids if they don’t have the sip cup lids,” said Macuada. Starbucks is the first place on Southern’s campus to go strawless due to it being the easiest place on campus to make the transition.

“Starbucks already has their own lids, then when we want to start moving it across, we have to research and find our own lids, because at the student center Coca Cola doesn’t have the sip lids for their cups,” said Macuada.

Chartwells is hoping to move the sip lids across campus at different locations within months of it being at Starbucks. The Food, Service, Advisory Committee meetings and are biweekly on Mondays.

“Derek [Faulkner] — he is in the Office of Sustainability — and he has been trying to get us to make that push [to strawless] and we agree. We always wanted that push it is just the logistics of getting it there,” said Macuda. “We are finally getting that push with Starbucks since it is so easy.”

According to For a Strawless Ocean’s website, it is estimated that people use over 500 million straws every day in America, and most of those end up in the oceans, polluting the water and killing marine life.

Many students said getting rid of the straws and going to the sip lids will be beneficial.

“I think that it is a good idea,” said health care studies major Haley White, a sophomore. “It’s better for the environment.”

Last week, Starbucks switched their cups to a type that uses less plastic. The employees at Starbucks like the idea of using less plastic but they said the cups have become weaker. When the employees make drinks, the cups fold, making it harder to put the lids on.

There are other environmental strategies on campus other than getting rid of straws. One is that students can bring their own cup to any of these locations to save money on their beverage: Starbucks, Bagel Wagon, Dunkin and Roberta’s.

Southern also uses compost containers and plastic containers made of recycled material in the Student Center. Getting rid of straws in Starbucks is the next phase to becoming more environmentally friendly. “

Straws aren’t really safe for our environment,” said psychology major, Emily Souza, a freshman, “and I feel like even though it will still be a plastic lid it’s still much better for our environment instead of having straws thrown out and getting into our oceans and sometimes killing our animals.”

 

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