A sign at a Tacoma, Wash., Starbucks early this month said it would temporarily stop filling personal reusable cups to help stop spread of Covid-19.
Photo: Ted S. Warren/Associated PressThe war on plastics is being put on hold as the battle to contain coronavirus ramps up.
Single-use plastic products, in the crosshairs over environmental concerns in recent years, are now getting a boost amid efforts to stop the spread of the virus. Personal drinking cups and reusable shopping bags are being shunned, while sales of bottled water, masks and wipes—made from plastic—have soared. At the same time, some recycling programs are being suspended because of concerns about the virus spreading.
Starbucks Corp. has said stores that remain open in North America would serve coffee only in disposable cups for takeout. Starbucks, Dunkin’ Brands Group Inc. and Tim Hortons—owned by Restaurant Brands International Inc.—have all stopped filling customers’ reusable cups, a U-turn after years of encouraging them.
Fearing reusable shopping bags could spread the virus, New York state Sen. John Flanagan is calling for the state’s plastic-bag ban to be suspended. Nick Isgro, mayor of Waterville, Maine, is seeking a ban on reusable bags for 60 days.
“Whether it’s coronavirus that gets transferred or something else, we know scientifically these things are laden with germs because a lot of people just don’t clean them,” Mr. Isgro said.
Environmentalists say temporary moves away from reusable cups and bags could have a lasting impact on the fight against single-use plastics. They worry the moves could raise bigger doubts about the hygiene of reusable products and disrupt fragile consumer habits.
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Larissa Copello de Souza, a campaigner at Zero Waste Europe, a Brussels-based nonprofit, said companies were shortsighted to focus only on the threat posed by coronavirus. “We cannot forget and disregard the other big current challenges we are also currently facing,” she said, citing climate change, waste and plastic production. “Promoting the use of reusables is certainly one of the greatest practices we can have to address those issues.”
Upstream, a nonprofit, also defended reusables.
“Coronavirus mainly spreads through coughs and sneezes, not your reusable water bottle or cup,” it said, adding that disposable items could harbor pathogens that settled during manufacturing and transportation.
However, it also noted that the virus had shown that better systems were needed for reusables, like hands-free dispensers in stores and on-site sanitizing for personal containers.
Health experts have conflicting opinions on whether banning reusable cups and bags would help curb the virus.
“It’s drawing a pretty long bow to believe this will be meaningfully impactful,” said Cameron Wolfe, associate professor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases at Duke University. “It’s an incredibly low likelihood that the cup would be the primary vehicle for transmission to occur.”
Coronavirus can survive for a period outside the body and is transmitted through droplets like those generated by a cough or a sneeze. If a cup is infected, its owner probably is too, said Mr. Wolfe, making handing over cash and touching door handles potentially just as risky.
“You’d have a better impact if you told customers with active coughs not to come in, or to use hand sanitizer before approaching the coffee stand,” he said.
Others, though, say retailers are right to take every possible precaution.
“When something is as transmissible as this you want to minimize all possibilities,” said Jonathan Abraham, an assistant professor of microbiology at Harvard Medical School. “It’s better to be extra careful than assume it’s overkill.”
Brian Black, a regular Dunkin’ customer in Asheville N.C., was surprised when his local outlet wouldn’t refill his reusable cup last week. Still, the 46-year-old, who works in building automation, appreciated the change since he said Dunkin’ uses the same spoon to stir multiple coffees and other people’s reusable cups may not be germ-free. Dunkin’ didn’t respond to a request for comment.
While coffee chains have embraced reusable, personal cups as a simple and effective way to cut waste and reduce their carbon footprints, only a few customers habitually bring these in.
Starbucks in 2008 said 25% of its cups would be reusable by 2015. Today in the U.S., roughly 1.8% of Starbucks beverages are served in reusable cups, despite the company offering a discount for personal cups. In the U.K., where Starbucks charges a small fee for paper cups in addition to offering a discount for reusable ones, the figure is about 5.8%.
Ravi Dhar, director of the Center for Customer Insights at the Yale School of Management, says habit formation is particularly important when trying to persuade people to change their behavior. Once habits are set, people behave without careful deliberation, like automatically brushing one’s teeth every morning.
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“If a new habit is created around using disposable cups, it is likely that returning to reusable will be harder,” he said. “This is especially if this new practice lasts for a few months and for high-frequency behavior—like buying coffee.”
Starbucks says it is still giving people who bring in their own cups the discount, they just can’t use them.
Katherine White, a professor of consumer insights at the University of Calgary, recently had a reusable cup declined at a Starbucks. She says the move “seems counterproductive to sustainable habit formation and the goals of companies” and that it “gives people a potential excuse for not bringing a reusable mug in the future.”
Write to Saabira Chaudhuri at saabira.chaudhuri@wsj.com
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