Friday, April 11, 2008

Smart Starbucks Cups

This is not an endorsement nor encouragement to frequent Starbucks. The milk, if you use it, is not from grass-fed cows nor organic. I doubt the coffee is fair-traded. That said, if you did happen into Starbucks as I'm known to do in spite myself, you might have noticed the quotes on the cups, the paper cups, that is. Jerzy brought them to my attention a couple of weeks ago. Here are two:

The Way I See It #287
"There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women." This from, of all people, my hero - Madeleine K. Albright, Former Secretary of State and Ambassador to the U.N.

The Way I See It #282
"Childhood is a strange country. It's a place you come from or go to - at least in your mind. For me it has an endless, spellbound something in it that feels remote. It's like a little sealed-vault country of cake breath and grass stains where what you do instead of work is spin until you're dizzy." Lyall Bush, Executive director of Richard Hugo House, a center for writers and readers.

In the fine print on the bottom of the cups was a disclaimer and web address to read more - www.starbucks.com/wayiseeit. So I guess you didn't have to buy a cup of coffee or fish cups out of the trash to read all matter of quotes. Now Starbucks has changed cup designs. The way I see it, they should put some energy into organic, local supplies and fair-trade coffee.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't frequent Starbucks that much and I only drink their coffee bcause my son works there and it's free. However, I remember reading in their annual reports that, where possible, they purchase only fair-trade coffees. http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/fairtrade.asp

Judith Shapiro said...

Thanks for the info. One of mine works at Starbucks also but somehow I missed this.