Two Columbus-area coffee shops will begin offering a reusable cup program in the new year.
Customers will be able to take a reusable cup to go, then bring it back later. They'll get their next drink in another reusable cup while the shop washes the first one, and so on.
During a news event at Common Grounds Coffee and Meeting House Friday morning, Columbus City Councilman Christopher Wyche said each person in the city generates about 4.4 pounds of waste every day. He said about 3/4 of that waste could be recycled or composted.
Contributing to that waste is an estimated 500,000 single-use cups that Columbus residents throw away each day.
"We have one landfill here in Franklin County. And it has about 41 years of life remaining,” Wyche said. “So, it is imperative for us to reduce the amount of waste that we are sending to the landfill.”
Community Grounds Coffee and Meeting House on Parsons Avenue will be the first Columbus coffee shop participating in a reusable cup program, beginning on Feb. 3. Baristas will serve hot drinks in three sizes of metal cups from Oregon-based Okapi Reusables.
Before that, a Bexley coffee shop, Swonderful Times Café on Main Street, will start offering the same reusable cups on Jan. 13.
Customers can borrow up to two cups at a time and return them at either shop. There's a one-time $10 fee to sign up for the program and customers must download the Okapi app.
Wyche and Central Ohio Reuse Coalition, or CORC, are challenging more local coffee shops to join the pilot program.
Wyche said that if 10% of takeout orders at five coffee shops were served in reusable cups, that would prevent around 18,000 disposable cups from going to the landfill.
CORC’s Dan Barash said he’s been “beating bushes,” visiting coffee shops and networking to raise interest in the program.
"We've learned in this process so far that a lot of coffee shop owners and coffee shop customers are deeply concerned about the environment,” Barash said.
He said coffee shops that want to participate need a place to store cups, a way to clean and sanitize them and to train their baristas on how a reuse network operates.
Columbus City Council previously allotted $7,500 to the pilot program. Now, the Tom Meyer Public Interest Fellowship is contributing money to help get the program off the ground. A small grant from Upstream Solutions is helping fund Swonderful’s program in Bexley.
