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Comment by alexvaut | Hacker News Reader

What about returning refillable standard cups ? You return them dirty, starbucks/mac do wash them and everytime you want a coffee you get a clean one. It existed in France for glass bottles in the last century, it's still like that in Belgium for beers (and works very well). I don't see any problem to apply it for coffee. You can even think of little stickers of the brand from where you get your coffee, those stickers will be removed in the washing process. So if the big names can agree on few cup design/material and a washing process/logistic, they will have a very durable cup!

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I met the founders of a Startup last month that are doing exactly that: https://www.tcx.org/

Just mobile or is there really not a single picture of the cups on their site?

This sort of thing seems to be getting more common and I don't know why. Lots of software websites without a single screenshot. Yet a photo/screenshot can often tell you more than all the text.

I'm guessing it's because they haven't actually got anything yet. They have 2 images on their front page with the number of cups saved, and they're different amounts. They even use stock images of paper cups in one of the photos instead of their own cup.

I use a keep cup. Its similar to a gas station coffee cup but pretty easy to clean and is light weight. It has a nice little lip cover to prevent spillage when I'm carrying it around. Its also helped around the house with dishes. Its my coffee cup and its easy to move around. I always keep it close by.

For France, I'm pretty sure that bottles (coca-cola and beer bottles) are reused in bars, with the same delivery bringing the full bottles taking the empty ones away.

There's a couple of startups in Australia doing exactly that (I can't recall their names, though, so I can't say whether they're successful or not).

HuskeeCup is one of them. Their cups are pretty neat, being made from coffee waste.

The other, bigger, one there is KeepCup, but I don't have any experience with them.

Sounds kind of like Loop[0]. You get metal containers that you send back when you want a refill, and they sanitize them for you. They seem to be planning to stock more than just food, like mouthwash/hair products.

[0] https://loopstore.com

Standard is the key word here. Good thing McDonals is partnering with Stabucks here.

This will not happen; each firm will benefit from only accepting their own proprietary cups. Also, what about sizes?

This is where regulation can step in, like how the EU regulated standard phone chargers.

As far as I'm aware, the most the EU has done is look closely at doing it (most recently in 2018). One could argue that Lightning ports are better (particularly when compared to micro usb), and Apple seems to be slowly switching to usb-c. A standard charger would a. prohibit fast charging technologies or b. "pick the winner" with respect to such technologies. It would almost certainly slow or halt the use of newer fast charging technologies, higher bandwidth connections, etc. as they were created.

I understand bottles are different, but I felt a bit of a need to mention what a bad idea the phone charger thing was. "Design by committee" is a pejorative for a reason. Also, knowing governments, they would do something crazy like mandate the standard soda cup to be small (see NYC).

> what a bad idea the phone charger thing was

The correct approach there would have been telling the industry to get their shit together and agree on one standard (and then mandate that, not "that or an adapter" like what they let Apple get away with), under the threat that otherwise they'll make a standard for them.

I would argue that the industry do this already. On the part of Apple, lightning was undoubtedly better than micro-usb, and switching immediately to usb-c would arguably create more e-waste. Also, Apple is probably more sustainable than many other companies.

As the owner of several Apple devices with 30-pin connectors, which I replaced with devices with Lightning connectors, which it seems I will have to replace with devices with USB-C connectors in a few years, I would have been happier if Apple never invented either of those proprietary connectors and just went from micro-USB to USB-C like most of its competitors.

That's… exactly what the EU did, minus the legal mandate or adapter ban steps?

> In June 2009, many of the world's largest mobile phone manufacturers signed an EC-sponsored memorandum of understanding (MoU), agreeing to make most new data-enabled mobile phones marketed in the European Union compatible with a to-be-specified common EPS. All signatories agreed to develop a common specification for the EPS "to allow for full compatibility and safety of chargers and mobile phones."

> […]

> The original Common EPS memorandum of understanding expired at the end of 2012. The Commission reported at the time that all of the fourteen MoU signatories, "have met their obligations under the MoU." Eight of the original MoU signatories signed a 2013 Letter of Intent (LoI) to extend the 2009 MoU another year and, in 2014, five of those companies (Apple, Blackberry, Huawei, Samsung and Sony) again signed a second Letter of Intent, effectively extending the MoU through the end of 2014.

Doing "exactly that" but minus the legal mandate or adapter ban is like making "exactly" a cup of coffee but without the coffee or water. And then throwing the cup out 5 years ago, too.

Without the legal mandate and adapter ban, they might as well have done nothing. To this day, there are two common connectors for Android phones (Micro USB and USB C), a different connector for iPhones (Lightning), and proprietary connectors for most feature phones.

One slightly worse but standard charger is a better situation than loads of incompatible chargers especially when you consider environmental impact. My main concern would be avoiding blocking progress where a new standard is built which is better but we can't move over to it because of regulation.

That's only true of you prioritize minimization of e-waste over personal convenience, which most (including me) do not. The regulation delay is exactly the problem: had politicians standardized micro-usb, we would still be on it rather than usb-c.

This is why we need regulation to enforce whats best for society over whats convenient for an individual in the short term.

In Australia, the laws refer to the Australian Standards (ie. AS3000 for the electrical code). These are updated as necessary with out an act of parliament.

Regulation delay is a feature here, as we don't need a new standard every couple of years.

No one in America needs a new standard either. Literally no piece of gear I own has usb-c, except for one on my laptop which is not the primary charging port and I do not ever use (due to the traditional lineup of ports being available).

I get switching can be a pain, but most people (the people regulation is crafted to cover) do not upgrade on the schedule of many tech enthusiasts. Consumers are also keeping devices progressively longer as time goes by.

I'm still happy with micro-usb, usb-a, hdmi, etc. for now. People do not switch out devices all at once, and it seems that forcing them to do so would create waste.

Lastly, how do they enforce it? Any one can go on amazon.com and buy a non-standard charger and a plug adapter, right? I would imagine those who do want things like quick charge would just buy the stuff.

It seems like we are still in a transition period. Every host device I have like my laptop and phone uses usb c and every accessory like my headphones and bike lights charge on micro usb even though they are new models. I'm guessing the reason for this may be that microusb is cheaper and offers no downsides when only used for charging.

One could also build a business making a printer that prints the company labels on the glass but washes off during the cleaning process. Water based paint or something environmentally friendly. So they could still differentiate their products at the store.

It already does happen in Australia.

Returned cups practically scream "biohazard" in all caps.

Have you never drank from a glass or eaten off a plate or used cutlery in a restaurant? Seems like a solved problem.

I would be concerned about what horrible things a person might do to those cups outside the restaurant. Perhaps this is unfounded, but I assume this would require commercial dish washers to be upgraded (which I'm not opposed to).

Cups seem like they’d be easy enough to clean. Travel coffee cup lids are another story. I have a hard time cleaning mine, and I’m only concerned about cleaning out my own germs.

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