Starbucks shareholders to get visit from 6th-grade environmentalists

Two sixth-graders from Calgary are heading to Seattle to take on big coffee.

For their science fair project this winter, 12-year-old Mya Chauand 11-year-old Eve Helmanlaunched a petition to demand Starbucks create a fully recyclable coffee cup.

By Monday, their petition had garnered almost 300,000signatures on Change.org.

The popularity of their petition caught the attention of a coalition of environmental groups, including Greenpeace, that has been pushing for such a change for years now.The groups have pitched in to send the two girls toWashington state on Tuesday.

"We're going to try to attend the Starbucks shareholders meeting and hand in our petition so they will try to get a fully recyclable cup everywhere," Eve told the Calgary Eyeopeneron Monday.

• Coffee cups: Are they being recycled at Tim Hortons and Starbucks?

The girls aren't yet sure they'll be allowed to attend but hope their messagehits the right ears.

They're hoping Starbuckswill say"they want to change to help the environment,"Mya said.

The two became interested in the issue of coffee cup waste about two years ago.

"I heard my mom talking about how bad they were for the environment and I thought, 'Wow, they're so bad, like the ocean can get filled with garbage and stuff," Mya said. "And then me and Eve thought we should survey people."

For their fourth grade science fair project, they surveyed 167 people at schools and malls and found that on average, each threw out 155 coffee cups a year.

The environmental groups sayStarbucks promised at least a decade ago to make a 100 per cent recyclable cup by 2015 but has not yet followed through.

In a statement to the Calgary Eyeopener, Starbucks Canada said its hot drink cup "actually is recyclable where supporting recycling infrastructure exists," and listed various other efforts its made, such as using 10 per cent post-consumer waste to make the cups and to give coffee drinkers a discount when theybring their own mug.

• MORE CALGARY NEWS |NHL trailblazer Larry Kwong dies at 94
• MORE CALGARY NEWS | Airport can't spare a dime for the C-Train until employment takes off

With files from Caroline Wagner andthe Calgary Eyeopener