50 cent coffee mugs to help save trees (and your wallet)

brooklyn roasting company — BK Roasting Company's Rebecca and Janel show off the sweet ceramic cup.

Two horrible things happen every time you get a Starbucks: 1) you’re giving money to Starbucks and 2) you get a one-time use wasteful paper cup that you’ll gulp down and discard on the train platform, never to be seen again. Brooklyn Roasting Company, Dumbo’s adorable little bean factory by the water, is trying to solve this problem. They’ve started selling vintage ceramic cups for 50 cents a piece, so you can take your coffee to-go without taking a tree with you. Bring it back and you get discounted coffee or cappuccino refills. They’ll even wash it for you!

For a sense of perspective of the potential problem of paper cups, Americans used about 23 billion paper cups in 2010, which was 5 billion more than we used in 2006. That’s about 9.4 million trees that are no more so you could have a shot of caffeine in the morning, creating about 363 million pounds of waste.

And while a $20 travel mug is also a nice option, 50 cents is hard to beat, especially for all you Dumbo startup kids who just need some coffee to take back to the office.

Brooklyn Roasting Company, 25 Jay St., Dumbo.