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Absolutely astonishing,now I bet there aren't too many starbucks addicts round here, but it makes you wonder how many more chains are up to this kind of thing, whilst we all diligently turn of the tap when we brush our teeth. The figures are just astounding.

Good grief!

Thankfully all these incomprehensible coffee type places haven't (yet) arrived in France. Well at least not in the sticks anyway.

The best was one of the comments from a DM reader. Something like "what does it matter as long as they pay for it, it comes from the sky..." Now that sort of comment is nearly as worrying as the article was in the first place.

The Guardian reports seems to miss the point somewhat with all the talk of Namibians. If Starbucks were to stop wasting that water, it wouldn't be going to Africans anyway, so why mention them? What the article doesn't mention is the CO2 that is emitted in purifying and pumping that water that will affect Africans. When newspapers are counting environmental cost, they should try to be a bit more educational.

Rod, thanks for your post. I thought it was a case of author-wanting-to-be-fashionable, PC-trendiness using Namibia as an example.

It would have been more to the point, to name the areas being drained of water directly, due to Starbucks' open taps.

Isn't it just for a sense of scale? Most quantities of anything mean nothing to most people without scale, most journalistically infamous is comparing any piece of land to " x times the size of Wales" KWIM, besides one of those figures really did make the scale of the problem quite real to me, they equated water wasted in the uk stores per day to that needed to supply Matlock Bath.....only a few miles from where I was brought up. And as for the water wouldn't go to africa anyway, well I think your average grauniad reader knows that, it just highlights for the umpteenth time how ridiculous the west's attitude to precious resources can be and how totally unsustainable this civilisation is.

all that waste and th coffee is still poo...

runny poo though.

Silver Ether wrote:all that waste and th coffee is still poo...

That was my first reason not to go to St*rbucks: the coffee tastes vile. And costs a fortune...

Clara wrote:....but it makes you wonder how many more chains are up to this kind of thing, whilst we all diligently turn of the tap when we brush our teeth. The figures are just astounding.

Good point. Starbucks is an easy target, bit like McDo's really, but I have a feeling that they are probably nowhere near the worst offenders when it comes to wasting drinking water. I think I'd probably start in the food processing industries if I were going to look for the top end of the scale.

And, as has already been pointed out, IMO the coffee stinks.

Follow-up at the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7654691.stm

So there will be a major exodus of customers from Starbucks then - not. Like the exodus from the Golden Arches, Kentucky Fried Chicken and all the other food stores that have been hit by bad journalism.

It will be the shortage of customer's money that hits the coffee chains and the fast food outlets. Though I suspect that many of these will survive because they are cheap whilst the slightly more expensive and less junk food type chains and cafes will shut their doors.

I don't think an exodus is the point, hopefully the bad press and the exposed branding contradiction will just force them to turn off the tap.

I'm not a SBs kinda girl (the nearest one to me must be a 4 hour round trip!), and I can't drink coffee ( but I do love the smell!). I think I went in one during my recent visit to the UK when I came over a bit funny and realised that I'd walked miles for hours without having anything to eat or drink (I'm pregnant too), so I was like SUGAR - NOW!, whatever concoction it was that I ordered was awful, I mean really vile.

Clara wrote:And as for the water wouldn't go to africa anyway, well I think your average grauniad reader knows that, it just highlights for the umpteenth time how ridiculous the west's attitude to precious resources can be and how totally unsustainable this civilisation is.

I'm not qualified to say what the average grauniad reader knows and doesn't know. A couple of my old mates in Japan write for the grauniad, so all bets are off on that point...

The trouble with the Africa thing is that in the UK, people generally see a lot more rain falling than Namibians would, and hence would tend to think that they have that much more to waste without even giving a thought to the CO2 emissions that 'civilized' water use involves. And since most people don't want to cut back their water use to Third World levels, I suspect they'd be far more likely to dismiss the comparison out of hand rather than think "Maybe I could cut back a little more". The African comparisons are a cliché and I think, counter-productive in the end.

I was once served Starbucks' over-roasted coffee on a plane and I thought it was very nice, but otherwise, I'm not tempted to sit in coffee shops, buy takeout drinks, or consume fatty, sugary concoctions with bastardized Italian names.