Starbucks $1 Coffee Cups Might Be The New Reusable Grocery Bag

About 28 percent of Americans have either purchased one of the cups or plan to, according to a study by YouGov Omnibus.

The majority of those polled also said they thought the environmentally-friendly measure was a great idea.

But Starbucks' $1 cup could fail to significantly reduce paper waste for a simple reason: people will forget to bring it with them.

Mary Beth Quirk at The Consumerist compared the cups to the reusable grocery bags that were all the rage a few years ago.

"Once the initial novelty wears off, will anyone actually remember to bring the dang things in? After all, how many times have you arrived at the grocery store only to realize you’ve forgotten your environmentally-friendly shopping bags?" Quirk wrote.

A corporate responsibility activist had similar concerns.

"A bigger factor is human behavior. I have friends who are environmentalists, and they have trouble remembering their mug," corporate activist Conrad MacKerron told USA Today. "We're so used to this disposable culture."

While Starbucks' reusable cups are popular in the short-term, the verdict is out on whether they'll impact the environment.

Here's the YouGov graph showing what people thought of the cups:

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