Idea of the Day: how to reduce the use of plastic and cardboard cups

Check out this headline from a recent Whole Foods press release:

Whole Foods took a leadership position by eliminating plastic bags from their stores, and obviously the bet paid off: their customers are happy about the decision and the environment is cleaner as a result. So why haven’t more companies replicated this stance? Here’s one way that it could happen:

Starbucks (and/or Dunkin’ Donuts, Peete’s Coffee, etc.) could commit to improving their environmental stewardship by encouraging people to bring their own travel mugs. Reminders help, of course (for about a year Whole Foods had a big banner on the front of their store reminding customers to bring their bags in with them) so the coffee franchises could run a promotion that would work like this:

1. On the day their campaign starts, they will give out free travel mugs (branded, of course) to the first 10 customers at each store.




2. From then on, every time a customer brings their own mug they get entered into a Grand Prize contest (there would be no other way to enter).




3. At the end of six months the Grand Prize winner is randomly drawn and announced (the prize would be something like an all expense trip for 4 to Costa Rica).




4. Meanwhile, customers are asked if they want to submit a video (less than a minute long) about why they bring their own cups to Starbucks. The videos are posted to Starbucks’ website, and each month (for a year) every store chooses one winner to receive free coffee for a year. Maybe the internet audience even gets to vote for the customers they want to win.

What do you think?