A friend of mine showed me an article featured in the Sun about Starbucks being busted for pouring millions of liters of precious water down the drain (click here for his post on this). In this article, it is said that every Starbucks branch has a cold tap behind the counter which they called a “dipper well”. This “dipper well” is mainly used for washing spoons and other utensils. What happened is they let the water run when they are open for business all day long — it didn’t matter if they were using the water or not. It is left running — resulting in millions of liters of water being washed down the drain.
I was blown away by that news. My first thought was — no, I won’t go to Starbucks anymore. Some countries have got no clean water to drink and here we are, supporting this coffee maker into wasting millions of liters of water, just to wash their coffee-making spoons and utensils. Mind you, this is not even for washing the cups, plates and cutleries. The water is just left running.
Despite saying that I won’t pay any more visits to Starbucks, I still ended up going to Starbucks at E-gate with my parents earlier this evening. I have a perfectly good explanation for this (yes, you have to hear me out). In conjunction with my dad’s birthday, HSBC gave him a Starbucks voucher — you get like a whole free package; a cup of coffee, a slice of cake, a coffee maker, a pack of home blend coffee beans and a Starbucks signature mug. It IS really difficult to say NO to such a good offer right? (yes, I’m a cheapo). Hence, we went to claim all these stuff AND I couldn’t resist the temptation of having a green tea frapuccino — GRANDE. *gulp*.
Starbucks at E-gate (and I inserted a pic of the signature mug — somehow)
Remembering this article, I began my little investigation. Well, it’s not so much of an investigation, but I really wanted to eye-witness this myself.
A pretty familiar sight for those frequent Starbucks goer, right?
After placing my order, I went over to the area where you wait for your drinks to be made. And there it was — the running tap.
Water left running in the “dipper well”
See the area where the arrows are pointing? That’s the “dipper well”, as mentioned in the article. Zooming in, there goes the gazillion liters of water, wasted everyday. I was really tempted in asking the barrista the reason for letting the water run. Somehow, with the amount of people there, they were just too busy. If you notice, the stuff that they are washing, it is really just the utensils (again, as mentioned in the article). In addition to the running water, note that the water is slightly murky. Really, are those utensils well-cleansed in that “dipper well”? If business is good, will the clean water suffice the cleaning process of the utensils? *shrug*.
So, yes. I’ve eye-witnessed the whole scenario. Do I like what they are doing? Most definitely not. Like I say, there are places in this world where it is close to impossible for ppl to get clean water and here, Starbucks is literally throwing all these clean water away. They may have a good explanation for this, but still, I see it as wastage. There has got to be a better way to operate this whole cleaning-utensil-activities.
Will I pay another visit to Starbucks? Most likely no. Well… make that a firm NO. Unless they acknowledge this whole scenario and do something about it. I’m sure the guy behind Starbucks who has been smart enough to make Starbucks such a well-established coffee brand would know that being environmental friendly is oh-so-important in this era. Well, they did change their serviettes into some environmental friendly serviettes. They may want to consider doing something about this water scandal as well.
Oh, which then leaves me at having a need to learn how to make green tea frap. Oh shucks.
Love this new found passion. Love my moleskine passion recipe journal. Love the Asian Food Channel. *woot*.
Enjoy.
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