Adopting HuskeeCups: Chasing a Zero-Waste Dream
By Carol Sohn / March 6, 2020
This past November, we reached our 10-year anniversary as a company. We are proud of how far we have come with coffee and this community. Growing as a business has many consequences— mostly amazing ones, such as the recent recognition as a winner by Good Food Awards 2020 for our roast, Taaroo Mill. But one consequence that bothers us is that 600 billion disposable cups end in up landfills every year. Penstock alone passes out about 26,000 disposable cups per year.
Although constructed partly with paper, these disposable hot cups cannot be recycled because of their wax lining that prevents hot liquids from leaking. So we thought about our mission of sustainability. It is a principle that is foundational to our sourcing practices, from the farmer to the cup. But what about after it leaves the cafe counter? It is still something we want to follow to its end.
We looked around at several cafes that inspired us, such as Blue Bottle Coffee which is testing their San Francisco cafe to eliminate all disposable cups and packaging by the end of 2020. Then there are our neighbors here in New York at Think Coffee. We called them and were incredibly surprised to learn how all of their cafes’ trash bins are in fact compost bins. In other words, every disposable item in their cafe is compostable so they have no need for trash bins.
So albeit a hard task, we have a dream of becoming a zero-waste cafe. Thus, we have partnered with Huskee.
Available in 8 oz & 12 oz (Natural), both online & in-stores.
HuskeeCups are the reusable coffee cup made with raw material (recycled coffee husks). What makes it unique is its closed-loop swap system. How it works:
Purchase an 8 or 12 oz HuskeeCup in the shop
Get your first drink in it for free!
Leave the cafe with your drink.
During your next visit, drop off the cup dirty.
Meanwhile, we'll make your new drink in a commercially cleaned, ready-to-go HuskeeCup.
What's greater, you can take your HuskeeCup to any HuskeeSwap location and do this same exchange!
We'd like to remind our customers a couple important things. As always, bringing your own cup to Penstock (whether it's a mug, tumbler, or HuskeeCup) will get you a 10-cent discount. Also, our baristas are happy to give any dirty tumblers a quick rinse so if they've got one in the car with coffee still in it, just bring it in! It's nothing to be embarrassed about, and it's all in effort to divert just one more cup from ending up in a landfill.
Looking ahead to the next ten years, we want to be proud of how we are doing business by our planet too. Thank you for always supporting our mission to be sustainable from the farm to the cup, and beyond.
We'd like to give a huge thank you to Highland Park's very own Mayor's Teen Council. These students saw our vision and personally fundraised to help stock Penstock with these HuskeeCups.