Starbucks, citing ocean threat, is ditching plastic straws

Starbucks will eliminate plastic straws from all of its locations within two years, the coffee chain announced Monday, becoming the largest food and beverage company to do so as calls for businesses and cities to cut waste grow louder.

While the straws account for a small percentage of the pollution that ends up in the ocean, they've become a flashpoint because they're seen as an easy way to reduce waste.

"There are several of these single-use items the public is realizing, hey, we don't actually need these," said Denise Hardesty, a scientist with Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation who studies plastic pollution.

A week after its hometown of Seattle banned plastic drinking straws and utensils, Starbucks said Monday that by 2020, it will use straws made from biodegradable materials such as paper and specially designed lids. The company already offers alternative straws in Seattle.

Straws often become trash because their small size makes them difficult to recycle.

Other cities, like Fort Myers Beach in Florida, have banned plastic straws, and similar proposals are being considered in New York and San Francisco. The push to ban the straws gained traction after a viral video in 2015 showed rescuers removing a straw from a sea turtle's nose in graphic detail.

Online Image

The issue of waste more broadly is coming up in company boardrooms.

In February, Dunkin' Donuts said it would eliminate polystyrene foam cups from its stores by 2020.

McDonald's said it would switch to paper straws in the United Kingdom and Ireland by next year and test alternatives to plastic straws in some U.S. locations. The burger chain also said this year it would use only recycled or other environmentally friendly materials for its soda cups, Happy Meal boxes and other packaging by 2025.

Plastic drinking straws are photographed in New York, Wednesday May 23, 2018. Citing the growing problem of plastic pollution, New York City Council Member Rafael Espinal introduced the bill on Wednesday, May, 23, 2018 that would ban the use of plastic straws and stirrers in New York City bars, restaurants and coffee shops. (AP Photo/Barbara Woike)

Plastic drinking straws make up only about 4 percent of plastic trash by number of pieces, and far less by weight. Straws add up to about 2,000 tons of the nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste that ends up in waters around the globe each year.

Still, the advocacy group 5 Gyres notes that the top five biggest sources of single-use plastic are plastic bags, water bottles, to-go containers, to-go cups and straws.

Other plastic items have also been targeted in recent years.

Several local governments have enacted bans and fees on plastic bags. Reusable water bottles have also gained popularity as a way to reduce use of plastic water bottles, with refilling water stations popping up on college campuses and elsewhere.

One reason big chains say it will take time to change practices may be the difficulty in securing adequate supplies. Imperial Dade, a food service and janitorial supplies distributor based in New Jersey, says it's seen a huge spike in demand for alternative straws in recent months.

"Our biggest challenge is trying to locate alternative sources so we can satisfy the demand," said Laura Craven, the company's director of marketing.

Craven also said she's starting to see more awareness about the need for exemptions for straws that bend, which people with disabilities and others may need. Starbucks says it expects an alternative it has to work in that regard.

The strawless lids will begin to appear in Seattle and Vancouver Starbucks this fall, with phased rollouts within the U.S. and Canada next year. A global rollout of strawless lids will follow, beginning in Europe, where they will be used in some stores in France and the Netherlands, as well as in the United Kingdom.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday made it harder for the federal government to win court orders when it suspects a company of interfering in unionization campaigns in a case that stemmed from a labor dispute with Starbucks.

The justices tightened the standards for when a federal court should issue an order to protect the jobs of workers during a union organizing campaign.

The court unanimously rejected a rule that some courts had applied to orders sought by the National Labor Relations Board in favor of a higher threshold, sought by Starbucks, that must be met in most other fights over court orders, or injunctions.

The NLRB had argued that the National Labor Relations Act, the law that governs the agency, has for more than 75 years allowed courts to grant temporary injunctions if they find requests “just and proper.” The agency said the law doesn’t require it to prove other factors and was intended to limit the role of the courts.

Following the decision, Starbucks said, “Consistent federal standards are important in ensuring that employees know their rights and consistent labor practices are upheld no matter where in the country they work and live.”

But Lynne Fox, president of the union representing the workers, said Starbucks should have dropped the case as part of its more conciliatory attitude toward union organizing efforts. “Working people have so few tools to protect and defend themselves when their employers break the law. That makes today’s ruling by the Supreme Court particularly egregious," said Fox, president of Workers United.

The case began in February 2022, when Starbucks fired seven workers who were trying to unionize their Tennessee store. The NLRB obtained a court order forcing the company to rehire the workers while the case wound its way through the agency’s administrative proceedings. Such proceedings can take up to two years.

A district court judge agreed with the NLRB and issued a temporary injunction ordering Starbucks to rehire the workers in August 2022. After the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling, Starbucks appealed to the Supreme Court.

Five of the seven workers are still employed at the Memphis store, while the other two remain involved with the organizing effort, according to Workers United, the union organizing Starbucks workers. The Memphis store voted to unionize in June 2022.

As as the case proceeded, animosity between Workers United and Starbucks began to fade. The two sides announced in February that they would restart talks with the aim of reaching contract agreements this year, and they held their first bargaining session in nearly a year in late April.

Workers at 437 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores have voted to unionize since late 2021, according to the NLRB, but none of those stores has secured a labor agreement with Starbucks.

Starbucks said it's pursuing its goal reaching ratified contracts for those stores this year.

Supreme Court Police officers stand on duty outside of the Supreme Court building on Thursday, June 13, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)