A Starbucks Christmas Carol

Every time I look in my wastebasket at work, there is a Starbucks coffee cup, sip lid, and thermal cup sleeve (or if it's summer, a clear plastic cup, flat top lid, and green straw) looking up at me. I rescue them from my cup holder in the car after two-hour drives to and from the country on weekends. Sometimes they accidentally wind up as backseat passengers. Other times, I’ve discovered these cups buried in a backpack or gym bag, evidence that no appropriate trash receptacle was available when I had my last sip. 

I started to think about the assorted remains of my coffee drinking indulgences and realized that, if I drank two cups of coffee every day (which I clearly do) throughout the year, I would have consumed 1,065 beverages and contributed more than that amount in trash-destined paper goods and plastic waste. Now if the average shop sells 200-300 cups a day, as some reports indicate, and there are 15,756 Starbucks in 44 countries, that's 4,726,800 containers of one sort or another to be trashed each and every day. Staggering, right?

So I pondered whether there was some way to extend the life of my Starbucks salvage, to re-imagine it somehow and give it renewed purpose. Voila! In the spirit of the season, I found at least one solution. Merry Christmas, Starbucks, from BobVila.com! For details on how to make these ornaments, click here.