Economic and Social Viability of Returnable Cup use in Cafes in the United States of America

Single-use coffee cups are widely used across the U.S. with approximately 136 million cups consumed daily. These are notoriously wasteful as they are used, on average, for 13 minutes. Additionally, most are coated in polyethylene liner, which makes them nearly impossible to recycle. Returnable coffee cup deposit-based systems have already been successfully implemented in parts of Europe. The cups typically used in these systems are made from recyclable polypropylene. The returnable cup companies operate by selling the cups to café or by collecting a subscription type fee from the cafés. Customers then pay a deposit, typically one euro, for the cup and return it to any café within the system. The goal of my research was to understand whether café owners in the U.S. would be willing to adopt and use this type of system to reduce waste. I was particularly interested in understanding how café owners view waste production and how it ranks in their priorities. To do this, I conducted semi-structured interviews with café owners in the Boston metropolitan area and spoke with two companies that operate returnable cup systems. Café owners found the idea difficult to understand and explained that sustainable cups are not a priority. Based on the pro-environmental behavior model developed by Kollmuss and Argyeman, a returnable cup system could address the external factors influencing café participation in such a system, but it may take more time to raise awareness and demand amongst café owners and customers before returnable cup systems become widely accepted.