Howard Schultz on Environment Starbucks CEO; independent candidate for President

Paper sleeves instead of polystyrene coffee cups

Switching to polystyrene would have saved Starbucks $5 million a year at that point in time. But we decided against it. It didn't solve the environmental issue, and it wasn't consistent with our image. [Starbuck invented paper sleeves instead]. We decided against polystyrene cups. It didn't solve the environmental issue, and it wasn't consistent with our image.

So we decided to test market a paper sleeve. Instead of two cups, we would slip a ring of corrugated cardboard around the middle of each paper cup of regular coffee. The sleeve used only about half as much material as a second cup and even contained some recycled paper.