Starbucks redesigns cold cups to make them more sustainable with 20 percent less plastic

Starbucks announced Thursday that the plastic cups used for cold drinks will be redesigned with the environment in mind.

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The new cups will be available in all sizes using about 20% less plastic than what the chain currently uses, CNN reported. The hope is that Starbucks will help reduce environmental impact by reducing its waste and carbon output by about half by the year 2030.

“The tall, grande, venti and trenta cups, which debut this month, will keep more than 13.5 million pounds of plastic from landfills each year,” the company said in a news release.

The new cups are expected to debut in some locations in the United States and Canada this month, The Associated Press reported. According to CNN, the new cups are expected to be fully rolled out by spring 2025.

“We feel like it’s industry-leading,” Landers said. “It’s the best expression of a cold plastic cup,” Amelia Landers, Starbucks’ vice president of product innovation said, according to the AP.

The company said that its cold drinks including its Frappuccino drinks make up about 75% of its beverage sales in the United States, the AP reported.

“I think we will never take our foot off the gas, evaluating new ways and new methods and new technologies to go further,” Landers said. “We’re not done.”

The new cold cups will also have other features as part of the redesign including raised dots to help baristas with impaired vision. The 12-ounce cups will be made to use the same size lids as other cold cup sizes, the AP reported. There will also be new black and white “fill lines” to show the drink level for light and dark-colored drinks, CNN reported.

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