Afrigather Climate|They’re the Stanley Cup Champions. And That’s a Lot of Mugs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/09/local weather/stanley-mug-sustainability.html
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The ‘it’ mug’s promoting level is sustainability — one cup to interchange many disposable bottles. However what does it imply when folks purchase a lot of them?
The Stanley Tumbler, this yr’s smash hit, is, at first look, a win for the planet.
It’s sturdy. It’s reusable. Not like the throwaway plastic bottles it’s meant to interchange, it doesn’t generate mountains of plastic trash.
However the craze has sparked some less-than-sustainable habits. Folks boast about owning dozens of them. When Goal launched particular editions, together with a much-coveted Starbucks model, it precipitated a mini stampede.
Some pattern forecasters say the fad is already over. “Some millennials or Gen-Z are already embarrassed to hold a Stanley,” stated Casey Lewis, who writes the trendspotting newsletter, After School. “And we all know what’s going to occur,” she stated. They’ll sit unused, collect mud on a shelf or in a basement, or “worst case situation, they’ll find yourself in landfills.”
Stanley mania is a narrative of how advertising, influencers and the facility of social media converged to provide a cultural phenomenon. Stanley bought an estimated 10 million “Quencher” water tumblers in 2023, and the corporate’s complete gross sales for that yr are anticipated to have reached $750 million, up from lower than $100 million in 2020. The cups generally price between $35 and $45 however can resell for lots extra and the #StanleyCup hashtag has been seen billions of occasions on TikTok.
However the pattern can also be an instance of how a rising universe of eco-conscious merchandise — issues initially marketed to be sustainable — can morph right into a catalyst for merely shopping for extra, doubtlessly canceling out environmental advantages. Entranceways have develop into cluttered with totes meant to save us from the scourge of single-use plastic bags. Cabinets are accumulating odd devices, like collapsible metal straws or reusable meals containers, meant to chop down on the single-use type.
“The purpose of a reusable mug is that, theoretically, you solely want one. And also you’re changing dozens and even a whole lot of single-use cups with that one reusable mug,” stated Sandra Goldmark of Columbia College’s Local weather College. But when an individual buys a lot of these mugs, “you’ve bought numerous water-drinking to do,” she stated, to make up for the environmental impression of producing them.
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