Starbucks will give you a dime back if you use their new cup

While the City of Seattle used a stick, Starbucks is dangling a carrot.

A nickel bag fee prodded many Seattle shoppers into being more environmentally conscious by carrying their own canvas bags into grocery stories.

Starbucks is giving customers a dime if they’ll use the company’s new reusable tumbler.

Starbucks Thursday is introducing its $1 reusable plastic cup.

The company will offer coffee consumers a dime discount for each cup refill. Do the math, the white plastic cup pays for itself in 10 uses.

The coffee chain has offered incentives before to customers who bring in reusable containers, but this is the first time they’ve sold their own plastic tumbler, with logo, for a buck.

Before the national roll out, Starbucks tested the reusable tumblers at 600 of their coffee shops in the Northwest and found getting a dime off the price of a coffee was worth it to a lot of people. Reusable cup sales were up 26 percent over the previous year.

Starbucks has tried to reduce its cup costs for many years. In 1997, they developed the first cup sleeve as a way to protect customers from hot beverages and avoid the waste of using two cups. They’ve held “Cup Summits” with MIT scientists and others trying to find ways to create a more environmentally-friendly cup.

Although CEO Howard Schultz has been on a campaign to generate U.S. jobs, Starbucks’ reusable tumblers were made in China.

By LINDA THOMAS