No more straws? Starbucks’ chief sustainability officer, Michael Kobori officially announced that the company will be removing more straws from its menu back in July of 2018. Instead of straws, they are using sippy cup lids, but some drinks will still come with straws. 

This company-wide change is due to environmental concerns. The huge corporation has an end goal of reducing 50 percent of waste sent to landfills by 2030. 

Michael also reported, “As we move closer toward our 2030 target of a 50 percent reduction in waste sent to landfills, the long-standing history of innovation within Starbucks, partnership across the industry and changing consumer behavior remain fundamental to our purpose and our prosperity as an organization”. 

From 2018 alone, 3.85 billion Starbucks’ paper cups contributed to landfill levels, all that were not disposed of properly. In some cases not disposed of at all. 

Because of this, Starbucks is trying to develop new cups that are compostable and easier to dispose of to help the environment. 

“The company’s goal is to develop a 100 percent compostable and recyclable hot cup by 2022, according to its 2019 Sustainability Report,” stated Jazmin Goodwin of CNN. 

Clara Liu ’23 fully supports this change to help the environment; “I personally really admire them for doing this as it’ll help the problem of climate change and the safety of animals.”