UK Starbucks waste precious water

Environmental News Network has a report from the Organic Consumers Association on how many gallons of water coffee franchiser Starbucks wastes per day.

According to the British Sun newspaper, Starbucks wastes 23.4 million liters (that's 6.18 million gallons) of water every day in 10,000 outlets. This is due to the policy of leaving the tap on nonstop.

"A single Starbucks tap left running for just over three minutes wastes the amount of water one African needs to survive for a day in drought conditions.

Under the company's health and safety rules, staff are banned from turning the water off because management claim that a constant flow of water prevents germs breeding in taps."

Read the full story: Starbucks wastes millions of litres of water a day

Starbucks coffee to be served in ceramic

Environmental News Network reports that Starbucks, the global and ubiquitous coffee chain, will serve all in-house coffee in reusable ceramic mugs.

But if you still need to take your coffee to go, bring a reusable container and you might get a discount.

If that isn't "green" enough, Starbucks will also convert all stores to 50 percent renewable energy by 2010 and will also use 80 percent sustainable coffee by 2013.

Although we at Ecotravel News are not Starbucks frequenters (mostly because of the outrageous prices), we applaud the chain for their eco-efforts.

Read the full story: Starbucks goes ceramic