I appreciate your note about the Starbucks at which you work in Boston. It’s easy to forget that large chains aren’t just one hive-mind-like entity, but a series of stores each with different policies and managerial styles. Similarly, some of the decisions (to not have a recycling program, for example) we attribute to a company’s higher-ups often fall upon lesser administrators and ancillary services like JRM Hauling, which you mentioned. It’s at once disheartening and empowering to think about the complex web (no pun intended) of power and responsibility because while no one can fix it alone, we can all help out a little bit.

If you want to connect with other people that care, please consider registering with Padosa. Another useful place to go for any Starbucks-related news is http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/. I can imagine that might be interesting to you as a barista.

Also, once a customer told me she used to work at a Starbucks that recycled. Mine does not, and frankly it is obscene the amount of material we simply throw away that is recyclable. I’m not sure if as yet no effort has been made to establish recycling at this particular store, or if the waste pickup servicer (JRM Hauling) does not provide it. I intend to discuss it with my manager.

If you examine Starbucks cups now, I believe they say they are 40% post-consumer material, and the iced cups now have 15% less plastic in them than before. However, being unable to introduce recyclable cups until 2015 seems downright indolent to me.

When I was hired, I was surprised by how much Starbucks actually does as part of the Shared Planet program, much more than I had known or assumed up to that point. Many of the coffees sold in Starbucks are traded at higher than fair trade values while not being certified fair trade. One, the Mexican Serena blend I believe, is certified organic, while many of the others coffees and blends are partially or totally organic, despite being uncertified, as organic certification is costly for small-scale farmers.

In contrast to this, the Equal Exchange brand based out of Massachusetts sells ALL only organic and fair trade products: coffee beans, chocolate, tea, and recently nuts. Granted, Equal Exchange is much smaller than Starbucks, and has only one actual coffee shop near North Station in Boston, but they manage to pull off 100% organic and fair trade products. This leads one to wonder about the practices of a giant such as Starbucks: is Howard Schultz dragging his feet, or are the source farms too impoverished at present to achieve third-party organic and/or fair trade regulation?

Tangentially, it is worth noting that as of today, June 30, 2009, no Starbucks food or drinks will contain artificial flavors or colors, trans fats, or preservatives. One slice of the banana loaf is still around 350 calories, but it’s not a step in the wrong direction.