Kickstart: Another shift away from plastic for Starbucks

Starbucks is turning to paper for its cold drinks in some markets after failing to find much traction with recyclable polypropylene glasses.

The coffee giant says the new cups being tested in select locations rely on fiberboard for the lid and container with a compostable bioplastic liner. It will offer both flat lids and domed lids for those who want a spritz of whipped cream on their cold coffee.

Images of the new cups released by Starbucks include graphics proclaiming that the cup is compostable. But it warns the cups must be processed in a commercial composting facility, and not every site will accept them yet.

At the same time Starbucks said it will accept its customers own reusable cups at all locations. That should reduce waste overall.

"Starbucks is the first and only national coffeehouse in the U.S. to allow you to bring your own clean personal cup — whether its a reusable tumbler, thermos or travel mug," the company says on its website. "You can use it for every visit to company-owned and licensed stores in the U.S. and Canada, including drive-thru and mobile orders."

It will also offer its own branded reusable cups for in-house customers rather than relying as heavily on single-use paper cups, which is already a common practice for many independent coffee shops. In addition, 30 Starbucks locations are testing a returnable cup program.

"We've set an ambitious goal for our cups to be 100 percent compotable, recyclable or resusable, sourced from 50 percent recycled materials and made using 50 percent less virgin fossil fuel derived sources by 2030," the company says.

“We’ve set an ambitious goal for our cups to be 100 percent compostable, recyclable or reusable; sourced from 50 percent recycled materials; and made using 50 percent less virgin fossil fuel derived sources by 2030,” the company says.

U.S. toolmakers are stuck waiting to see if the federal government will move ahead with 25 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum that will affect the price of tools they make. President Donald Trump has sworn that the tariffs will begin in mid-March. However, he previously set deadlines for tariffs from all products from Canada and Mexico that were to start Feb. 1 only to pull them back at the last moment.

“We continue to monitor the dynamics of the rapidly changing tariff situation,” American Mold Builders Association Managing Director Kym Conis said in an email to Plastics News’  Catherine Kavanugh, who has written an in-depth look at what the latest moves could mean.

Molds are built from steel or aluminum blocks — depending on the end market and whether they are for high- or low-volume production. And the U.S. imports a lot of steel and aluminum. Higher costs for those blocks mean higher production costs for tooling.

And if tariff threats return for all Canada-made parts, that will put extra strain on an auto industry that traditionally sources tools from both sides of the Detroit River.

Look for the full story later today.

 One of the new players in vinyl record pressing has a message for musicians: If you want your music loud, then you need to keep your recordings short. Squeezing more music onto each side of a vinyl disc requires more grooves, which then reduces the depth of the tones.

“Volume-to-disc has a direct correlation with running time,” says Pittsburgh-based Hellbender Vinyl. “The shorter your record, the louder it can be made.”

A group of musicians opened Hellbender in 2022, seeing it as key to opening routes to market for independent artists who would otherwise have to compete against stadium-filling headliners for access to production time.

While viny records have been gaining in the market, Hellbender still is one of only 40 record pressing companies in the U.S.