07 October 2008
High street coffee chain Starbucks is wasting millions of litres of water a day by leaving a tap constantly running to clean spoons and other utensils.
According to a report in
The Sun yesterday, the chain’s policy of keeping a dedicated tap running all day long wastes £23.4 million litres a day, or enough to fill an Olympic pool every 83 minutes.
But Starbucks has defended its decision to use the dipper wells as a “common and well accepted technique in the industry”
A Starbucks spokesperson told
FM World: “Our current water usage adheres to the World Health Organization, United States Environmental Protection Agency and EU directives for all in-store water supply standards.”
“However, we recognize the opportunity exists to reduce our total water usage”
The spokesperson added that alternative cleaning methods, including the use of ice baths and the elimination of spoons altogether had failed.
Jacob Tompkins, director of water efficiency agency Water Wise, said that there are a lot of other ways to stop a build-up of bacteria, and the chance of a build-up in the spout is extremely remote.
“If there is one they’re not cleaning the tap properly.”
“There is clearly room for improvement in this area and we look forward to working with Starbucks to reduce its water consumption,” Tompkins added.
“In the short term Starbucks could look at ways of reducing flow rates and at finding times when the tap can be turned off and these two simple approaches should be able to roughly cut wastage in two."
website
website
