Tim Hortons is experimenting with returnable cups. I tried it out and here’s how it went

The assignment was straightforward: Visit one of the coffee shops participating in a pilot project that promotes reusable and returnable cups and interview the users. But they never came.

While sitting at a Tim Hortons in downtown Vancouver one morning this week, I watched a steady stream of customers come and go, and all — except one, who had his own tumbler — ordered coffee with a disposable cup.

They willingly or, in ignorance, paid 25 cents for the convenience of a single-use cup.

Vancouver city council is hearing a motion on Wednesday that, if passed, would axe the controversial fee that was designed to get more people to use in-house glassware or ceramic mugs, bring their own mugs or buy in to a reusable cup/ cup-share system.

The fee, brought in on Jan. 1, 2022, was designed to reduce the 80 million or so cups that end up in the landfill every year in Vancouver alone, but now looks to be gone by summer.