Columbus program would have coffee shops loan out reusable cups 'like a library'

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- Coffee shops will loan out reusable cups like books at a library under a pilot program in the city.

Over 500,000 single-use coffee cups are thrown away in Columbus every day, the city reports, so the Central Ohio Reuse Coalition (CORC) has introduced an open-loop coffee shop reuse plan. At a recent meeting, Columbus City Council approved a $7,500 grant for the program.

The program would give customers the option to borrow reusable cups when ordering at participating shops for a small, undetermined fee. Legislation from the council described the program as functioning "in a manner like a library." Guests who order a reusable cup would be responsible for returning it to a participating location.

Customers don't have to worry about washing their borrowed cups either.

"It's the coffee shop that owns it, and they're ultimately going to wash it," said Dan Barash of the CORC.

South End Cafe at 1951 Parsons Ave. is one of the locations interested in participating, according to the council. Councilmember Chris Wyche said the goal is to bring multiple independent coffee shops into the fold, creating a network of participating businesses passing the cups around.

"The plan is to try to get a number of South Side coffee shops within the pilot so that we can test out the ability for folks to borrow a cup from one location, return it to another, grab another cup, and see how that works," Wyche said.

Barash said the plan is to have five shops participating in the pilot program. The hope is to have all on board by September.

Waste reduction is one of the two main areas the program seeks to address. Wyche said that only 5% of single-use plastic is recycled, and it's important to lighten its load since the city only has one active landfill.

"If we change this trajectory and reduce the amount of waste and trash that we're sending to our landfill, we can increase the amount of time that we have with our current landfill," Wyche said.

The other area of concern the program addresses is health, with the council's legislation saying that plastic from a disposable cup can leach into a beverage. Barash said microplastics are a serious concern.

"The evidence of health impacts of [microplastics] is apparent," Barash said. "It's kind of early days; if you want to use smoking as an analogy, it took a really long time for there to be ironclad, incontrovertible evidence that smoking is bad for your health. Do we want to wait until there's more and more evidence of the health problems, or do we want to look at the evidence we have now and say, 'This is really concerning'?"

Once coffee shops officially sign on, Barash said the program can get started quickly.