Coffee Cups Are Next • Hacker News Board

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#101

Post by jamesrcole » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:29 AM UTC

SllX wrote: post #99

zeta0134 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth pointing out that the obvious alternative, reusable to-go cups, need to solve an additional set of challenges: - Must NOT violate sanitization of the work area; cups provided by customers should not pose any health risks to workers or other customers. - Should be durable enough to survive repeated visits - Either the reusable cup must conform to a standard size, baristas need a way to measure liquids consi…

Trained staff, health inspectors and dishwashers solved all of this. Some friendliness on the part of the establishment as well as good judgement on the part of the employees are enough to gloss over size differences in cups. Most travel mugs you see are going to largely conform to your typical to go cups, and nobody really bats an eye at filling a 14 oz cup and charging it as a 12 oz instead of a 16 oz, but if you f…

> Trained staff, health inspectors and dishwashers solved all of this

How? You only explain how cup size may be dealt with - what about the other cases?

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#102

Post by mikekchar » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:29 AM UTC

rorykoehler wrote: post #83

usefulcat wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like some sort of deposit system might work. First time, customer buys an inexpensive but reusable cup, which they can take with them. On a following visit, customer exchanges this cup for a clean one, which they can also keep or trade in on a subsequent visit. The retailer would have to wash the cups but at least that would solve the sanitation and consistent serving size issues. After too much wear and tear t…

Needs to be asynchronous. You pay for the cup when you buy a drink and you can drop it off at any disposal machine and get your money for the cup back. The problem to solve is that no one wants to carry a cup around for longer than necessary. Buy, drink, dispose. The government could help a lot by creating a standard cup and mandating all companies have to use them.

> The problem to solve is that no one wants to carry a cup around for longer than necessary. Buy, drink, dispose.

This is a cultural problem. Women carry around handbags that are jammed to the brim with junk. Men don't generally carry handbags at all. There is no place to put a cup.

In Japan there are virtually no trashcans and people are culturally taught not to litter, so everybody has to carry their trash home with them. There is even a movement to disallow workers from using trash bins at work! When I worked at the local high school, I was forced to take all my trash home at the end of each day.

In that kind of environment, you naturally start to carry bags to store stuff until you can get home. Now I have a handbag that I carry with me everywhere. Usually it contains my wallet, my cell phone, a cloth shopping bag and any garbage I happen to have. It's pretty normal here, I think. If reusable drink containers were available, I don't think it would be long until all bags had "cup holders" in them.

But first you need to have a "take your trash home" culture. It's taken Japan decades to make that work. It's not impossible, but it takes time.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#103

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:32 AM UTC

wemdyjreichert wrote: post #86

belltaco wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is where regulation can step in, like how the EU regulated standard phone chargers.

As far as I'm aware, the most the EU has done is look closely at doing it (most recently in 2018). One could argue that Lightning ports are better (particularly when compared to micro usb), and Apple seems to be slowly switching to usb-c. A standard charger would a. prohibit fast charging technologies or b. "pick the winner" with respect to such technologies. It would almost certainly slow or halt the use of newer fa…

> what a bad idea the phone charger thing was

The correct approach there would have been telling the industry to get their shit together and agree on one standard (and then mandate that, not "that or an adapter" like what they let Apple get away with), under the threat that otherwise they'll make a standard for them.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#104

Post by abootstrapper » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:33 AM UTC

For starters Starbucks (and others) could offer and encourage the use of “for here” glasses. My local Starbucks has a few “for here” mugs, but no glasses for cold drinks. Seems like low hanging fruit there.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#105

Post by chrisseaton » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:34 AM UTC

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #36

chrisseaton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK there is a chain called Costa where the in-house mug only comes in one size, and it's a thimble - much smaller than the larger take-away cup. So you end up asking for a take-away cup even though you're staying in and they have mugs available.

So you're saying the replacement has to be good or people won't use it? That's preposterous! /s

Sorry for sharing.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#106

Post by SllX » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:37 AM UTC

jamesrcole wrote: post #101

SllX wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trained staff, health inspectors and dishwashers solved all of this. Some friendliness on the part of the establishment as well as good judgement on the part of the employees are enough to gloss over size differences in cups. Most travel mugs you see are going to largely conform to your typical to go cups, and nobody really bats an eye at filling a 14 oz cup and charging it as a 12 oz instead of a 16 oz, but if you f…

> Trained staff, health inspectors and dishwashers solved all of this How? You only explain how cup size may be dealt with - what about the other cases?

I should have been more thorough.

> - Must NOT violate sanitization of the work area; cups provided by customers should not pose any health risks to workers or other customers.

Trained staff can tell customers to hold onto the lid, rinse the bloody mug and fill it with some coffee. The establishment trains the employees to understand how to handle 1. The customer 2. Their mug and 3. Keep the area sanitary.

> - Should be durable enough to survive repeated visits

Durable travel mugs exist.

> - Either the reusable cup must conform to a standard size, baristas need a way to measure liquids consistently without in-cup guides, or coffee could be sold by volume...

Answered more thoroughly higher in the thread.

> - Reusable cups should not introduce enough delay to appreciably disrupt the flow of customers

Dishes are a fact of life in food service. A customer is in charge of keeping their own mugs clean but employees can give them a quick rinse. For mugs that belong to the establishment, trained employees know how to 1. Wash dishes and 2. Load them into a dish sanitizer because they are professionals and it is their job. Health inspectors keep the establishment honest.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#107

Post by chapium » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:40 AM UTC

Camillo wrote: post #42

I honestly don't see why this is a problem. I use my straw, or my coffee cup, or whatever, and I throw it in a trash can. It's not going to hurt any marine mammals unless you, the city government, go and dump it into the sea. So don't do that. If you can no longer put your trash on a barge to China, put it on a train instead and bury it somewhere in the enormous deserts that cover one third of the country. I don't wa…

The paper is compostable but the styrofoam cup or plastic lid is made from a limited resource.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#108

Post by baroffoos » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:43 AM UTC

pg_bot wrote: post #74

zeta0134 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth pointing out that the obvious alternative, reusable to-go cups, need to solve an additional set of challenges: - Must NOT violate sanitization of the work area; cups provided by customers should not pose any health risks to workers or other customers. - Should be durable enough to survive repeated visits - Either the reusable cup must conform to a standard size, baristas need a way to measure liquids consi…

From what I've read the reusables have to be used ~70 times to be more environmentally friendly than the current disposables. I think the easiest win would be designating between sit down and take out customers. Sit down customers could be given porcelain or some other washable container. However this would increase labor costs for businesses so you don't automatically get a free win.

This stat gets thrown around for a lot of different kinds of reusable products but what no one ever mentions is what does environmentally friendly actually mean.

When I have looked it up its always simply looking at energy usage to produce the product when by far the biggest impact of our throwaway products is that they end up blowing around the streets or they fall in to the ocean. And even if you do put them in the recycling bin they mostly end up shipped to the 3rd world to be burned or thrown in the ocean.

Also even just looking about the energy usage, 70 times is quite low. A proper coffee cup lasts a lot longer than 70 uses. Really they don't ever break unless dropped.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#109

Post by mc32 » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:46 AM UTC

Disposable cups at least are usually mostly paper... except for the cold drinks of the ones with fuzzy insulation.

Deal with disposable water bottles. And while we’re at it the proliferation of Amazon shipping boxes.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#110

Post by bArray » Mon, Apr 29, 2019, 1:48 AM UTC

pg_bot wrote: post #74

zeta0134 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth pointing out that the obvious alternative, reusable to-go cups, need to solve an additional set of challenges: - Must NOT violate sanitization of the work area; cups provided by customers should not pose any health risks to workers or other customers. - Should be durable enough to survive repeated visits - Either the reusable cup must conform to a standard size, baristas need a way to measure liquids consi…

From what I've read the reusables have to be used ~70 times to be more environmentally friendly than the current disposables. I think the easiest win would be designating between sit down and take out customers. Sit down customers could be given porcelain or some other washable container. However this would increase labor costs for businesses so you don't automatically get a free win.

> From what I've read the reusables have to be used ~70 > times to be more environmentally friendly than the current > disposables.

Is this assuming it goes into landfill afterwards? Does it look better if you use something more easily recyclable?

I think metal is a pretty good candidate: you can get it pretty thin, it's durable, keeps the coffee hot, light and easily cleaned. You just need to ensure that customers are not burning fingers or lips on the containers.

> However this would increase labor costs for businesses so > you don't automatically get a free win.

I think you could probably build relatively low cost cup washing machines, especially as you control the shape of the cup itself.