When the first Starbucks in Williamsburg appeared, plenty of people grumlbed about trash coffee. What they hadn’t counted on was coffee trash being strewn around the neighborhood, although let’s be honest you should always expect more trash in New York City. Sick of seeing it pile up on the streets around her business, the owner of Williamsburg coffee shop The West is offering a discount on their coffee if you bring in a picture of yourself throwing away Starbucks litter. Good troll or great troll?
Yep, by helping to tackle the city’s endless garbage problem you get a tangible reward. Walk into The West and flash a picture of yourself throwing away Starbucks litter, and you get 50 cents off your coffee. You don’t even have to have Instagrammed it, unless of course you want to show all your followers what an eco-warrior you are.
The reason for the discount, owner Esther Bell tells DNA Info, is that she’s noticed a huge uptick in Starbucks litter both in front of the coffee shop and on the neighborhood’s streets since Starbucks showed up just down the block from her. She doesn’t directly call people who drink Starbucks monsters with no self-regard, but she dances around it, telling the site that “people don’t seem to throw away their Starbucks cups.” Whether this will lead to Starbucks trying to game the system by having their employees take pictures of themselves tossing empty cups while they’re wearing their civvies and bleeding The West 50 cents by 50 cents is yet to be seen, but it’s definitely one way to get ahead in business.