Living a Plastic-Free Lifestyle 

By Lisha

As I am a big coffee lover, it has been my hobby to visit a café and relax and connect with the community. However, the more I discover cafés, the more questions pop up in my mind. Most cafés use paper cups for hot drinks. Yet, I have found most of the cafés still use plastic cups for their iced drinks. Is that not ironic? While many people are conscious of how much garbage they produce every day and how much plastic impacts the planet, the obsession with iced coffee and how it looks aesthetic has simply not faded. I have worked as a barista for over five years, and it is quite rare to see someone bring in their own cup for iced coffee, compared to customers that bring in their own mugs for hot drinks.

The problem here is the size. Personally, I do not own or feel compelled to purchase a bottle specifically for my iced coffee, as I take my water bottle with me. Hot drinks are typically smaller than iced drinks, which means having a small mug beside your water bottle will not take up so much space in your bag. But having another almost same size bottle in the same bag might make you question your to-go coffee options. Because finding a perfect size bottle can be difficult, it became a barrier for those who do not bring their own bottle for the iced drinks.

 To reduce waste, the best choices are to bring your bottle or stay in. It is not a difficult decision unless you want to take an aesthetically-pleasing photo for social media. Iced coffee in a plastic cups can look beautiful from its color gradation. With summer coming up, it is the time of year where people want to take advantage of the sun, nice weather, and nature. On the weekends, every park and beach will be packed with people and their takeaway iced drinks.

While consumerism has taken over social media, it can be fun and tempting to present yourself with an aesthetic look on platforms. However, the iced coffee trend has misguided some of us into developing a toxic habit. Posting a picture of your takeaway coffee has been a never-ending trend. There are indeed some people do a picnic in the park or on the beaches and only take pictures. This, I see as a toxic social media impact. People buying products just to join the trend and to prove on social media is nothing but just unhealthy. It can be a key to reducing unnecessary waste if we all start caring about the time we consume on social media. 

So, what is happening in people’s minds when people want to take away drinks? My thoughts were that they either genuinely wished to drink coffee and forgot to bring their bottles, want to treat themselves by holding aesthetic coffee cups or think these take away drinks as a piece of behind scene for social media content. But there is more.

The takeaway habit itself has become more popularized since the pandemic. The COVID-19 outbreak has allowed many services and products to be offered online and with fewer face-to-face interactions. This shift has changed the aspect of daily living in many ways. Lots of people began to see that there are more options and ways to spend worthful time with themselves. Remote work options have become the norm these days with more people preferring to work flexible hours, and value their free time. It became obvious for everybody to prioritize themselves. The takeaway option is quick and easy, with no need for unnecessary contact or conversation with others, taking takeaway to a new level.

Abigail Forsyth, Co-founder of KeepCup, a B Corporation certified company which produces reusable cups told upstart, that as the café business she started with her brother began to grow, they “became increasingly concerned about the volume of packaging waste” their business and customers consumed.” Forsyth found that “there is enough plastic in 20 disposable cups to make one small KeepCup” because plastic, disposable cups are lined with polyethene and have a polystyrene lid.

It is true that now, many café business owners are aware of the waste they make and are on the way to making a small change. But as a consumer, what we can do and join this movement? The answer lies in B Corporation certified cafés. B Corporation (B Corp) certification is a designation that a business has met high standards of verified performance, accountability, and transparency on factors from employee benefits and charitable giving to supply chain practices and input materials. For a company to achieve certification, it must: 

• Demonstrate high social and environmental performance by achieving a B Impact Assessment score of 80 or above and passing our risk review. Multinational corporations must also meet baseline requirement standards.

• Make a legal commitment by changing their corporate governance structure to be accountable to all stakeholders, not just shareholders, and achieve benefit corporation status if available in their jurisdiction.

• Exhibit transparency by allowing information about their performance measured against B Lab’s standards to be publicly available on their B Corp profile on B Lab’s website.

Cafés that are or wish to become B Corp certified need to clarify to the public that they are socially and environmentally responsible for their business. Cafés with B Corp status means they are aligned with practices of reuse, recycling, and decreased waste production through processes such as, taking all the coffee waste to the recycling company, having a project of accepting used juice bins with the exchange of free coffee, etc. 

Making your coffee at home or bringing your own bottle to the café are easy ways to rethink your takeaway coffee consumption. However, this is also an opportunity to discover and support a B Corp certified café that is more responsible for the waste they produce. Lastly, rethink your way of time consumption to make your life more mindful, and prioritize your present time.