There was a time when coffee was something one sat down to drink in a charming mug, and then they continued on with their day. While to-go coffee has long existed, it has now become the de facto way java gets served up. While disposable cups are a convenient, relatively safe way to transport beverages from the coffeehouse to somewhere else, millions end up in landfills because you can’t recycle them, and they don’t keep drinks at an optimal temperature as long as more durable, reusable tumblers or other bean juice vessels.

With literal billions of coffee cups served every year and adding to the continuing single-use plastic dilemma, coffee outlets are assuming some of the responsibility for decreasing the amount of waste created in their operations by designing a better cup, such as McDonald’s and Starbucks-Dunkin’ has even switched to a less-bad cup, much to the chagrin of some loyal customers.