Disposable Coffee Cups That Could Plant Trees and Wildflowers?

Americans go through a staggering number of coffee cups a year, and that’s not even accounting for the sheer amount of java the rest of the world is drinking. While reusable mugs and travel thermoses can put a dent in the amount of waste our coffee habit produces, it’s not common enough to fix the problem. How many single-use cups wind up in landfills (and the ocean) every year?

According to Return to Now, though, there may be a solution on the horizon. One that will let us have our coffee and fight deforestation at the same time!

Finish Your Coffee, Plant The Cup!

The California start-up Reduce. Reuse. Grow. has made several alterations to the designs of their coffee cups to make them stand out from the traditional, single-use offerings. First, the cups themselves are biodegradable, and they’re lined with a plant-based plastic that will degrade in 3-6 months instead of the 50+ years for traditional coffee cup linings. While that’s already a good start, these cups go one step further; the company lines them with seeds so they can be planted!

Once someone has finished drinking their coffee, they unravel the cup and follow the instructions printed on the bottom. The seeds will either be for California wildflowers, or for a tree, which means that every coffee cup has the potential to grow. For customers who aren’t the green thumb types themselves, there are collection sites in the state of California. Here the manufacturer will pick up these used cups, and take care of the planting for them using a portion of their profits.

A Little Additional Cost?

Your traditional, single-use coffee cup costs about 1 cent, while these seed-filled cups cost about 2. That sounds like a no-brainer for most people, but it’s important to remember that big chains buy billions of these cups per year. However, with a little pressure and some additional popularity, it may be possible for consumers to get these greener. These more environmentally-friendly cups could be behind their favorite coffee shops’ counters so they can start making a real difference.