May 2025

Bainbridge coffee shops join new statewide campaign to reduce disposable cups

Bainbridge Island coffee shops have joined a new statewide campaign to encourage residents to bring their own cup to coffee shops. The Bring Your Own Cup (BYOC) campaign, recently launched by the Washington State Department of Ecology, invites customers to skip the single-use cups and choose to bring their own.

The following Bainbridge places are participating, and many even offering a discount if you bring your own clean cup:

  • Blackbird Bakery (25¢ off)
  • Commuter Comforts (25¢ off)
  • Coquette Bake Shop
  • CUPS Espresso (15-25¢ off)
  • The Marketplace at Pleasant Beach
  • Pegasus
  • Rolling Bay Cafe (25¢ off and cups for sale)
  • Starbucks (25¢ off @Safeway; 10¢ off @ stand-alone shop)
  • Town & Country Coffee Bar (10¢ off)

Make sure your reusable cup is clean and know its capacity to make ordering smooth. Keep it near your keys, set reminders, or keep an extra cup in your car or bag so you never forget it. After use, give it a quick rinse to make cleaning it when you get home easier!

Why BYOC?

Kitsap County and the Department of Ecology offer some good reasons for remembering to use your own clean reusable cup:

To reduce waste and litter

In Washington, 4.4 billion disposable cups are used every year, including 1.7 million cold cups and 2.7 billion hot cups. Plastic and paper cups, lids, and straws are not recyclable in Kitsap County, so all those single-use items end up in the landfill.

Fewer single-use items also mean less of an opportunity for those items to become litter along our roadways and streams.

To conserve natural resources

1.2 million trees are cut down to make paper hot cups and 63 million pounds of plastic is used to make cold cups. And to manufacture these single-use cups, 1.3 billion gallons of water is used. By choosing to reuse, you are helping conserve natural resources for future generations.

To save money

Many coffee shops offer a discount if you bring your own cup! Discounts range, so check with the shop. Small discounts like 25 cents add up - if you purchase coffee five days a week all year, a 25-cent discount will save you about $65!