As COVID safety restrictions lift and reusable cups is now an option again, places are working to do their part for the earth and encourage less wasteful options.

On April 22, Starbucks announced that they would be rewarding customers with a 10 cent discount and 25 bonus stars to Starbucks Rewards members, if they bring in their own clean cup to a participating store to use instead of getting their drinks in the regular paper or plastic cups.

This announcement comes after the coffee company announced plans last month that they would be cutting waste by 50% by the year 2030.

“We’ve always done a cup discount where you get 10 cents off any beverage when you bring in your own cup,” Braeburn Square Store Manager, Amanda Lawrence said. “It’s great. For sure using less waste.”

At the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, Starbucks didn’t allow people to bring in their own cups for safety precautions and now, they have recently started taking cups again once the number of COVID cases started declining.

“We’re getting back to normal,” Lawrence said. “Pre-pandemic, you would see a handful of people everyday bring in their own cup, then COVID happened, we stopped taking cups altogether, then it went away and now we’re starting to see [people bringing in their own cups] again. So that’s been nice.”

In honor of Earth Day as well, participating Starbucks stores across the nation offered 30% off on drinkware to encourage people to reduce their waste.

“I’m very encouraged that Starbucks is trying to get back to the pre-pandemic normal,” Lawrence said. “Getting back to being more environmentally mindset, where we had to get away from that during the pandemic because of cleanliness issues.”