Recycling at Coffee Stores

 Hello fellow Anthropologists!

    This past weekend I spent some time with my parents while we ran errands. We had the time to stop by our local Starbucks, and sat down and enjoyed our drinks. However, the moment we got up to leave and recycle our cups, we noticed that the trash bins and recycling bins were in terrible condition. 

The top photo is off the landfill trash bin, and the right photo is of the recycle trash bin. In both photos, the different types of trash are not properly sorted, nor are they properly disposed of.

Whenever I go to Starbucks, I always look at the trash bins, and how other people treat their trash. These trash bins consistently look like this, making this a trend. 

You can see that in the top photo, hot cups and cold cups are all thrown away into the landfill bin. The images above the trash bins do not indicate that these cups should be thrown in there, but I can't help but wonder why they can't easily be recycled. If I were to drink an iced tea, and dispose of my ice in the landfill bin, why am I supposed to throw it away into the landfill bin when I can easily recycle it?

In other words, I believe that some of the images indicating what should and shouldn't be thrown away into each bin can be very confusing to customers. This could be a leading factor explaining why the customers at Starbucks might be throwing away recyclables into the landfill bin. 

I also believe that there is something to learn about the attitudes of people within my community through the way that they throw away and sort their trash. I think the problem stems from the fact that people don't believe their actions make a difference. In the past, I have heard countless people say something along the lines of "recycling won't make a difference". It is easy to believe that one cup that is not recycled won't make a difference, but multiply that by a cup per day and by over 7 billion people, that adds up. To put it in other words, every small action makes a difference because these actions lead to habits, support from others, societal perspective changes, and eventually positive environmental impacts. 

Even though the trash bins at Starbucks might not look perfect, it is important to point out that Starbucks has images above the trash bins to begin with. That the company is taking efforts to try to improve their environmental impacts. The images above the trash bins are relatively new and will hopefully motivate others to become mindful about the way that they treat their trash and their environment.