Starbucks will now offer a 50p discount if you bring your own cup

Coffee chains lose friends and alienate people.

There are arguments about taxes unpaid, and this week, estimates that fewer than 1 per cent of the 2.5 billion takeaway cups used in the UK are recycled, were raised in the House of Commons. Today, broadsheet columnists half-jokingly suggested taxes on coffee not sugar.

Now Starbucks has announced that it will be lopping 50p off a coffee for those customers who provide their own mugs.

So a small (I will not use ‘venti’)  Americano will now cost £1.60, an equivalent Cappuccino will be £1.85, and an equivalent Latte £1.85.

Starbucks currently offers a 25p discount to customers who bring their own mugs but the chain doesn’t shout about it much. It told The Daily Mail that it plans a big publicity campaign around the 50p discount.

The initiative will launch as a two-month trial in April. Obviously, for it work, you’ll have to start carrying a mug around or buy one of those reusable Thermoses like your dad on a long car journey.

That’s Dad’s Crimbo pressie sorted

However, it is a toss up between looking like a bit of a nerd and still being able to remember what a tree is in 10 years’ time. The former is worth it for the latter.