Hampton Coffee Co. Dumps Plastic Straws for Local Paper

Hampton Coffee Company has joined the growing movement to end the use of plastic drinking straws on the East End. The business has eliminated plastic straws from all its cafés in an effort to reduce the amount of non-recyclable plastic sent to landfills—much of it ending up in sensitive marine environments.

The local group of family-owned espresso bars and cafés—located in Water Mill, Southampton, Westhampton Beach and Aquebogue, along with their mobile espresso unit—will instead be offering guests, by request only, the marine-biodegradable paper straws popping up in restaurants and businesses around the East End this season. This move is expected to save nearly 200,000 plastic straws from hitting landfills every year.

“We are always listening to what our guests are feeling and causes that they are involved in,” Hampton Coffee Company co-owner Jason Belkin says. “Being based in an oceanside community, plastic straw pollution in the marine environment has become a chief concern to many, including our staff,” he continues. “We were lucky to find Meghan Molloy, a local who started a paper straw company called The Paper Straw Girl, and she helped us find a quality paper straw that would hold up in a to-go cup of our famous iced coffee but still be environmentally-friendly.”

Along with avoiding harming the environment, Hampton Coffee Company guests will also be supporting Molloy’s new business, The Paper Straw Girl, and her efforts to do something good for the planet.

Since it launched on the East End more than 24 years ago, Hampton Coffee Company has always been in the forefront of helping to keep its local communities green. All its cafés are green cafés with single stream recycling and LED lighting, and they offer a variety of reusable cups and tumblers with discounts for bringing them back.

The original Hampton Coffee location in Water Mill features solar panels and oil recycling into biofuel. The Southampton coffee roastery ships mail order goods Carbon Neutral with UPS, prints its java jackets on compostable paperboard using vegetable inks, and produces single-use K-cups (for Keurig machines) in bio-degradable packaging. They also began using cage-free eggs in 2016.

Learn more at hamptoncoffeecompany.com.