Starbucks Wastes Large Amounts of Water

For all of you Starbucks haters out there read this story about how Starbucks just joined the RED campaign.

Starbuck RED Campaign

despite some of the naysayers, the water wasting faucet was not mandatory and could have been avoided. in fact, starbucks had been warned that this issue would come to haunt them. Bad PR works, thanks to the internet!

One week after coming under fire (again) for running faucets in their stores at all times, thus wasting 23 million liters daily, Starbucks addressed the situation: a spokesperson confirmed that "Stores will be instructed to switch off the dipper well tap and will wash spoons after use."

http://grist.org/news/2008/10/15/starbucks/

when it comes to big business, the only possible change is incremental, and this is one more step in the right direction.

Wholesum - Organic clothing for individuals engaging in sustainable living and aware that everything is connected and every bit counts in taking care of our people and our planet.

I have also worked there as stated by many who have posted but I am slightly more disenchanted. Let me explain...

I was an Enviro. Engineer undergrad and I worked for 5 starbucks in four years (lived in Tahoe so you filled in at other stores too). It seems as though everyone else who posted and said they worked there, cited recycling efforts. I never, let me repeat, NEVER saw any slight recycling effort. I mentioned it to multiple managers and district managers, nothing.

Tahoe starbucks do incredible amounts of business as there are an incredible amount of people there to ski, bike etc. Every day I saw 70-80+ plastic gallon milk jugs bagged and thrown in with regular garbage. It just made me sick. I can't even explain my frustration over seeing those not recycled every day.

Second, a starbucks, like any other food/beverage/retail store receives everything in cardboard boxes which were thrown away each day. I mean alot of boxes. Now in all fairness, most starbucks do about 2-3k in business per day and we did about 9-10K, so we definitely were a big store but there is still no excuse.

Look at how much plastic the company uses for it's retail items, cups, toys, etc. They produce an incredible amount of things which are never purchased and then end up being thrown away.

THE ESPRESSO BAR

Where to start. Well.. starbucks offers a wide variety of milks to its customers. Most people do not drink organic or soy milk(maybe you and everyone you know does, but the average customer doesn't). So, boxes and boxes of soy/organic milk get opened, half drunk and then thrown away. SOmetimes it was even just 8oz that were used and the whole thing went down the sink. This is a terrible waste.

The dipper well... I see the purpose and it was helpful to keep the spoons clean so you could do everything the slow, errrr, I mean starbucks way. Here's the deal, you can adjust the water flow pretty much between Niagara falls and dew falling off of a leaf. If starbucks told each store to run it at a very minimal level(or only had one setting at low) it would not completely solve the problem but it would save alot of water.Also these stores opted out of purchasing a pitcher rinser which would have reduced the amount of water used for rinsing by 75%. I'm sorry, environmental responsibility what?

Between the Espresso machines, sanitizer, pastry case, cold case, coffee brewers, blenders, ice machines, freezers and refridgerators, the hot water heater and the temperature control starbucks isn't exactly going lightly on the energy bill also.

Last, starbucks wants you to use a ceramic cup citing lack of waste. I hear it, but bring your own cup or use a paper one. They just add more dishes thus more rinsing and sanitizer washes. If you saw the heat and water used, you'd think twice.

In summary, starbucks loves to present to the public the image of an environmentally conscious company. The reality is that it is not a priority behind the counter and the employees receive no instruction on how to fulfill this "mission". It's just a facade.

I hope you found this helpful and if you're a coffee drinker, support the local shops, while the people may smile at starbucks, you won't be getting an act at a local shop.

I use to work at starbucks and if your talking about what I think you are then its the dip well. Its the little container that the utensils go into after you pour a latte or what have you. Its a container that has a little stream of water running into it to keep the water moving and clean. There are a lot of companies that have this kind of feature. Any ice cream shop will have them and no one makes a big deal about that. I worked at Jamba Juice as well and they all have these dip wells. Why don't you do there and complain? If we are going to be picky about water usage then lets talk about other companies that do the same thing.

New Starbucks Oatmeal

i can not believe that Starbucks is getting singled out for using a dipwell. does anyone have any idea how many other food service companies use a dipwell in their stores? it's not like we are in our stores flushing toilets and laughing as the water goes to waste. it's for you own safety. would you like salmonella with your latte? maybe some ecol i? honestly, there is just no making you people happy.

we have high temperature dish washing machines that recycle 80% of the water every wash. these wonderful, eco friendly machines not only save water each wash, but the need to pre-wash dishes and fill 3 sinks with water like EVERY OTHER food service business has to do is eliminated. YOUR WELCOME.

we have a special rinser for our blenders that use 90% less water than rinsing them under a running faucet.

and i'm sorry, but did you even read our CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) report? saying that we fall short of contributing to our communities and environment is a crock.

www.starbucks.com/csr
you should actually read what we do before you badmouth us.

The bottom line, why is this such a huge deal? with all of the good this company does for not only our communities, but for the communities in the countries we buy our coffee from. we have clean water. we have schools. we have clothes. we have hospitals. other countries do not. Starbucks helps get these things to people who need it. and you know what? that's more important to me than figuring out how to keep you safe and turn off a faucet that barely lets out a trickle.

you people seriously, make me sick.

The "faucet" is a dipperwell - a recirculating water faucet that is set at a trickle. This is NOT a regular sink, but rather a specialized faucet *required by the health department in most states* to keep utensils clean. It's not a choice when the health dept requires it.

It's really easy to slam Starbucks. They're a big company, and don't toot their own horn much around their environmental practices. However, most of the new stores are being built LEED-certified, and have net-zero environmental impact due to green building practices.

I'd recommend doing a little more fact-checking on this one. Media likes a story, but there's truly no story here.

Well, I guess when you sell coffe at $4 a cup, you can afford some waste! LOL

Jiff
www.Privacy-Center.Net

Everything in the place is run by water, this is correct. Coffee is 99% water. Espresso is made with steam. Milk is made by steaming. You clean using a commercial high temperature sanitizer. You also have to have a clean picture between every drink so you don't kill someone with a milk or soy allergy. To clean the milk pictures is a pain to say the least, and well, you need water to keep things clean.
In fact this is normal for coffee shops. Most coffee shops use a lot of water, but you can easily aim at starbucks because there is so many of them, when they have been trying to automate the espresso machines as much as possible to reduce the waste.
They have tons of environmental programs, like matching dollar for dollar contributions to charity, education funding, focus on literacy and All of their day old pastries go to homeless shelters. They also give health care to part time workers. They have a grounds for your garden program where they send the used beans to used as fertilizer, the milk jugs and everything is recycled. The store I worked at produced a measly 2-4 bags of garbage a day, and at least 10 in recycling. Their cups and sleeves are filled with post consumer recycled paper, and they glue them together/line them with biodegradable corn plastic stuff. Also they have good support for the farmers, and many managers go meet the farmers and view the production process at some point in their Starbucks career.
So, you have to understand, they are at the forefront of the coffee shop industry for corporate social responsibility.
I challenge you to walk into any Starbucks and ask a manager about their store's environmental impact.

i go to Peet's

it's a great place and they foster coffee house atmosphere. while only a handful of items are "officially" fair trade and organic they pay fair price for everything and buy only from select small coffee plantations thus ensuring they get organic beans (small plantations can not usually afford expensive fertilizers and herbicides etc.). In fact it was peet's that showed me that labeling things "fair trade" and "organic" is merely a marketing ploy as it costs a lot of money to legally use these terms. Peet's just bypassed all of this. So don't go to starbucks go to your local peet's. if you don't have one near you, as there's less than 200 stores nation wide, you can always go to peets.com. when you order coffee it's always batch roasted after you order it too to ensure the absolutely freshest bean. a further note peet's also works and invests in the plantations that it buys from ie building schools, nurseries, housing, etc. and if the bean isn't good enough peet's won't buy it. also just a little coffee fact ethiopian beans cannot be bought at fair trade prices because the state has nationalized the coffee market and sets all prices.

well, i hope i haven't thrown too much info your way.

I would also imagine that from a basic elementary school math standpoint this practice is senseless. The dollar cost of water running all day would be tremendous. In college I managed a 100% fair trade and organic coffee bar. The owners installed motion sensitive faucets to keep things eco-hygienic. No knobs to touch, no water to leave running. We got one temperature - warm - and only biodegradable organic soap. Everyone's hands were covered with responsible coffee grounds and not germs.