These days everyone is looking to decrease their carbon footprint and be more eco-friendly. From tupperwares to tumblers, consumers are starting to make smarter choices about how little waste they make. Businesses are constantly having to keep with the latest eco-conscious fads. Just recently, Starbucks has pushed forward their campaign to replace their straws with sippy cup lids, a change few could have predicted a few years ago. It’s important for a coffee shop now than ever to be informed and keep up with the latest eco-friendly rules and alternatives. By purchasing eco-friendly restaurant supplies, you can brand your business as a “green” company. This helps to attract others who want to protect the environment. We’ve identified a few easy eco-alternatives for your shop: 

Hot Cups:

Today there are many hot cups that are made from recyclable and/or compostable paper that decompose very quickly and won’t fill our landfills. The same goes for sleeves and hot cup lids.Brands such as World Centric make lids lined with NatureWorks Ingeo™ instead of polyethylene which is much easier to recycle. You can also throw on a custom kraft coffee sleeve with you coffee shop’s logo too let people know your coffee shop cares. COLD CUPS: 

Greenware is a leader in eco plastics offering compostable cold cups and lids made from corn plastic which breaks down much faster than traditional plastic cups and lids. World Centric completes the set with compostable straws both in wrapped and unwrapped packages. The eco alternatives coffee shops can use don’t end with just cups. Packaging for food also comes in many environmentally friendly shapes and sizes. Salads and such can be placed in paper pulp bowls with plastic lids, sandwiches and toasts in Kraft food containers, pastries in kraft dry-wax pastry bags, all packaged nicely in a kraft take-away bag with natural paper napkins. 

Coffee shops can also use this opportunity to upsell various eco-friendly alternatives to their customers such as canvas bags and reusable drinkware. Each canvas bag can replace hundreds of its plastic brethren and reusable drinkware can replace hundreds of various hot and cold cups and accessories. Such items can also be custom printed to the coffee shop’s logos and allow their customers to show off where they get their brew. Coffee shops can also offer a discount to customers who bring back reusable cups for their coffee refills. 

It’s more important now than ever for coffee shop owners to be informed and aware of alternatives they can make to improve their impact on our planet’s environment as well as how much their customers care about having the options to use eco-friendly alternatives when getting their morning coffee. Besides attracting green customers and reducing your coffee shop’s eco-footprint, switching to more eco-friendly products can also help you save money by reducing your shop’s waste and how you dispose of it.

To shop eco products head over to our eco category on the store. Don’t have an account? Sign up!