Single-use plastic is back! Starbucks, Tims, McDonalds will no longer fill travel cups due to coronavirus concerns

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As the coronavirus spreads to over 100,000 confirmed infections worldwide, travel cup-toting environmentalists will no longer be able to get their Starbucks soy lattes to go... unless they agree to add another paper-and-plastic cup to the landfill.

Starbucks has now joined Tim Hortons, Second Cup and McDonald's Canada in refusing to accept reusable travel cups in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In addition to “pausing the use of personal cups” in Canada and America, Starbucks says they're taking other precautions to keep everyone healthy:

“We are taking guidance from the CDC and local health authorities [and] we have increased cleaning and sanitizing for all company-operated stores to help prevent the spread of all germs...”

Which is a roundabout way of saying that it's really gross to hand a travel mug you probably haven't washed properly in weeks to a barista who wants to keep their work area clean.

Single-use plastics and one-and-done paper cups: Preventing the spread of a pandemic, one extra garbage bag for the landfill at a time.

Last year, the Trudeau Liberals announced a brilliant plan to ban single-use plastics by 2021 and possibly replace them with approved “paper-like drink box water bottles sort of things”, dooming us all the next time another deadly virus comes to town.