Blue Bottle Coffee Company Pledges To Become Zero Waste By Next Year

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- Bay Area-based Blue Bottle Coffee Company is going green, pledging that all its cafes in the us will be zero-waste by the end of 2020.

The first step in reaching that goal finds the company launching a pilot program locally that may be a bit of a hassle for customers.

Single-use disposable cups are on their way out at certain Blue Bottle cafes. Instead, customers will be encouraged to bring their own cup.

Many people KPIX 5 spoke with applauded the move.

"I think it's awesome," said Oakland resident Jazmine Livingston. "It's better for the environment and the coffee is wonderful."

Blue Bottle Cafe says the company goes through 15,000 disposable single-use cups per cafe per month in the u.s., adding up to 12 million cups per year.

They say the experiment to eliminate disposable cups may cost them money and make their customers' lives more complicated.

In the near futurr, one undisclosed cafe in San Francisco and one in the East Bay will launch the new pilot program by only serving beverages in reusable cups.

"A lot of people, they just can't drag a cup around all day; they don't have room," said San Francisco resident Glennis Briggs. "So that's why I think it has to be a compromise at first."

It is part of the company's effort to be zero waste by the end of 2020 at all their cafes nationwide. So with the phasing out of their paper cups with the Blue Bottle logo on them, the company wants customers to bring their own travel mug from home or purchase one of theirs. The barista will even clean your drinking vessel for you.

When asked if it was a big hassle to either bring a cup or pay a small fee, Livingston replied, "Not at all. I mean, California is going in that direction anyways, so it doesn't bother me too much. It's fine." (:13)

Blue bottle says they recognize that this will wreak havoc on operations at the two cafes participating in the pilot program. They expect to lose some business because of it, but believe it's their responsibility to change their behavior for the next generation.

"Maybe Blue Bottle will lose some customers on the one hand and pick up some others on the other, said Briggs. There's always a big line in there. I think they can afford to lose some."

No definitive timeline for the pilot program has been announced yet. Blue Bottle is owned by Nestle, which has also committed to making all of its packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025.