1.4 billion cups a day
OK, let me guess, you started the day with a good old cup of coffee this morning? According to the International Coffee Organization together we drink no less than 1.4 billion cups of coffee every day. A lot of these are drunk out of paper cups with a plastic coating, which makes them poor to recycle. If you include all drinks served out of such disposable cups it adds up to a staggering 500 billion each year! If you would stack them up you reach the moon and are already 30 % on your way back to earth…. No wonder that Starbucks and McDonalds reached out to IDEO to organize the NextGen Cup Challenge. A very well organized attempt using the appeal of an award of 1 mln USD to trigger creativity around the world.
More than 400 ideas
The creativity of the ideas that has come out is quite amazing, often a wonderful combination of material science with creative and beautiful design. More than 400 ideas have been generated, and about 30 shortlisted to proceed to the finals. Proud to be involved as a mentor of one of the shortlisted ideas….
Enjoy your coffee!
So if you take your next coffee out of a disposable cup…. know that you are holding one of 500 billion cups that are thrown away every year in your hand. It may make your action to take a reusable cup seem tiny, but in fact real chance only comes by taking action. And, stay posted for more news on solutions to make these cups fully recyclable. Enjoy your coffee!
