KC Coffee Shop Offers Environmental Fuel for Thought

The road to environmental sustainability may be long and arduous. But one small local coffee shop is taking a big step.

Oddly Correct recently announced that it is no longer offering any single-use paper or plastic containers. Instead, the shop is offering to-go drinks in $1 reusable and recyclable glass jars wrapped in a washable sleeve.

The shop’s motivation is clear. Tens of billions of coffee cups are simply tossed after a single use every year. Paper cups take about 30 years to decompose, while plastic can take hundreds of years.

“Even as a small company, we feel we have to do what we can to minimize our negative impact and make our own process as sustainable as possible..,” the folks at Oddly announced on Facebook. “Eliminating the waste from single-use beverage containers is one step we know we can take to have an impact where we are, right now.”

Oddly took the hint from a coffee shop in Des Moines. And over time, the move might make just as much sense economically as environmentally, because Oddly won’t need to constantly order more single-use cups.

“They cost us more than a dollar to get, but some of that we make up by hopefully over continued re-use, not having to continue to buy single-use products,” said manager Mike Schroeder.

Seems like simple math. Some might argue, brilliant.