Starbucks to drop plastic straws in China

Coffeehouse chain Starbucks started offering strawless sipping lids and paper straws instead of plastic straws on Monday in almost 1,000 outlets in Shanghai and Shenzhen on a trial basis, Beijing Youth Daily reported.

The eco-friendly initiative will be carried out in all Starbucks stores across China by the end of this year, fulfilling the company's promise of phasing out straws in its stores worldwide by 2020 ahead of schedule, according to Starbucks China.

Starbucks will replace plastic straws with recyclable strawless sipping lids for cold drinks without whipped cream and offer paper straws for beverages like Frappuccino, iced mocha and iced shaken peach green tea.

Starbucks is not alone. McDonald's trialed replacing plastic straws with strawless lids and only providing straws on request from the customer in 10 stores in Beijing in November 2018, encouraging customers to reduce straw use.