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There is a lot of waste associated with coffee shops. It is a sad fact that many in the industry are painfully aware of and actively trying to curb. But sometimes, even with the best of intentions, the results are\u2026 confusing. Take for example, the Stircle<\/a>, the new in-counter electric coffee stirrer. It feels like its heart is in the right place, so why can\u2019t I not hate it?<\/p>\n Brought to our attention by Mashable<\/a>, the Stircle is designed to combat the very real problem of waste in coffee shops, particularly the 400 million\u2014by Amron Experimental<\/a>\u2019s count, the company behind the Stircle\u2014stir sticks thrown away every day. But the solution feels a bit overdesigned, no? It\u2019s like if you got a bunch of Silicon Valley tech bros in a room and said, \u201cWe need you to design a new stir stick, not recreate the wheel,\u201d and all they heard was, \u201ccreate a new stir stick that is a wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Stircle\u2019s website, the device \u201ccosts 99% less to run than stir sticks and it stirs better.\u201d Dubious claims about \u201cstirring better\u201d aside (because what does that even mean? Surely this can\u2019t be a real, verifiable claim), the Stircle ranges in cost from $345 to $490, depending upon whether you get the basic or advanced model. A cursory search yielded a box of 1,000 coffee stirrers for $3.40. For the same cost as a basic Stircle, you can get 101,470 stir sticks (144,000 for the advanced model). I don\u2019t know how many stir sticks your cafe goes through a day, so you\u2019re going to have to do that math yourself to figure out how long the Stircle will have to be operational for you to break even\u2014not accounting for energy costs or maintenance\u2014never mind costing 99% less.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s not about savings, it\u2019s about keeping plastic out of landfills and saving trees. Call me old fashioned, but what ever happened to spoons? Reusable spoons. Yes, they require water to wash, but surely the water lost in spoon washing (which PS: cafes are already washing anyway. Surely there is room for a few more) is paltry in comparison to what it takes to design and produce an electronic stirring device. And you don\u2019t have to go on that $350 ride.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m on the wrong side of history here. In 20 years when there\u2019s a Stircle in every coffee shop and all the empty landfills have been turned into parks and community gardens, I\u2019m going to look like a real dum-dum. I\u2019ll wear my well-earned shame on that day. But until then, give me a spoon.<\/p>\n Zac Cadwalader<\/a>\u00a0is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas.\u00a0Read more Zac Cadwalader\u00a0on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n *all media via Amron Experimental<\/em><\/p>\n The post This Coffee Stirrer Is Eco-Friendly, So Why Do I Hate It?<\/a> appeared first on Sprudge<\/a>.<\/p>\n Source: Coffee News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a lot of waste associated with coffee shops. It is a sad fact that many in the industry are painfully aware of and actively trying to curb. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[39,41],"tags":[63,45,65,47,61,49,59,67,55,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":524,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520\/revisions\/524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecurbkaimuki.com\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}