Those sleek white Starbucks cups have been an embedded part of American pop culture for over two decades now, but I am happy to admit that their days are officially numbered:
"Our cup is ubiquitous, and we love that," said Michael Kobori, Starbucks chief sustainability officer. "But it is also this ubiquitous symbol of a throwaway society."
That's because the cups are disposable. When they are thrown away, the cups end up in landfills or as litter in streets and waterways. Some might be recycled, but recycling is an imperfect option — recyclable items still end up in landfills...
By 2025, the company wants every customer to be able to either use their own mug easily or borrow a ceramic or reusable to-go mug from their local Starbucks. That could mean rolling out more borrow-a-mug programs that require a deposit.
Here's a shot of me in 2026, enjoying a coffee in a borrowed Starbucks mug, reflecting with satisfaction on the demise of the disposable coffee cup:
Seriously, I'm just gonna say it because nobody else seems willing to say it:
Disposable coffee cups are pretty lame.
I mean, no question, the little tiny styrofoam cups they put out at church fundraisers and company picnics—those things are the absolute worst. They're tiny, insubstantial, they feel unpleasant on your skin, they have no heat retention whatsoever. Little tiny paper cups are almost as bad.
But a more robust cup like that of Starbucks—tall, thick-walled—is obviously preferable.
It's still a dissatisfying, unpleasant experience though. Maybe you're drinking it using the tiny "Traveler's Friend"-style lid, in which case you're probably scorching your mouth on the jet-blast of hot coffee that shoots through it when you take a sip.
You could take the lid off the cup and just sip it from the rim—but now you've got this light, conical, off-center coffee cup that's an absolute spillage hazard (try putting it in your car's cup holder and see what happens!).
You know what's a great device in which to drink coffee?
The coffee mug.
Seriously. Scientists have been trying to improve upon the basic coffee mug design since at least the Hellenistic era, and they've consistently failed. It's a perfect coffee receptacle. You need no other.
- It's heavy, sturdy, solid, compact, which means it's less likely to tip over by every measurement of tip likelihood.
- The robust ceramic or clay walls of a traditional coffee mug retain heat and keep your coffee warm for a convenient amount of time, while the wide mouth of the mug allows steam to escape so that you can enjoy it without having to wait fifteen minutes for it to cool off.
- It also offers a far more satisfying aesthetic experience. There is nothing more deflating than holding a little styrofoam cup, and holding a Starbucks-style cup isn't really all that much better.
- Holding a mug, on the other hand, imbues the drinker with an air of both purpose and panache. You look stylish and you seem authoritative when drinking from a mug.
- There's also the environmental aspect to consider. No, not every environmental concern is about GLOBAL WARMING. Environmentalists have been focused for so long on the mythical theories of "climate change" that they forget the environment has a very, very broad range of factors to it, among which is the litter we dump into the oceans and into landfills. If we can cut back on any of that, great. You know how you can?
By drinking coffee out of a superior mug!
Now, is Starbucks gonna be able to pull off its rental mug program? Who knows? That sounds ambitious enough to be crazy. But it's a step in the right direction, and I'm gonna be there for it... even if Starbucks coffee is itself really quite bad (shots fired, suckers!).
Let's hear it for the mugs!
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