Waitrose free coffee cups - virtue signalling?

[runningpram]

Ok so probably the most middle class post ever but I was in Waitrose with DD and saw that you now need to bring your own cup for the free instore coffee - there are no disposable cups on offer any more.
Fair enough - however the rest of the store is a bit of a sea of plastic. For instance if you want to buy a croissant and put it in your basket the only option was plastic bags - which presumably would get chucked away after a few seconds but would litter the oceans for hundreds of years. Is the coffee thing therefore just virtue signalling or AIBU?

They also got rid of the free coffee from the cafe at the same time. Which came in a china cup so no environmentalism involved.

You've had to bring your own cup for the free coffee for a long time now. It's great, easy and helps compensate for the chore of food shopping. No wrapping your cup in plastic bags - they have a lid that is secure, so just keep upright and put in your car coffee cup holder til you get home to wash it out.

Our tiny waitrose offers paper or those weird starch bags for bread. Most of their fruit bags are compost able ones.

My Waitrose only has brown paper bags. The coffee cups have been removed for ages, they're notoriously difficult to recycle.

Now these paper bags for bakery products or fruit are the waxed variety, correct? They might be made from recycled material but I’m not sure they are recyclable or biodegradable.
Yes, the unnecessary plastic food pancaking for cakes is so wasteful, plus it is very noisy so you can’t have a piece of cake at midnight without waking up the whole house.

No Waitrose near me! So are customers walking around the store drinking free coffee? Or is the free coffee in the cafe?

Usually they get a coffee to take away when they leave the shop.

Thanks merrymouse

Now these paper bags for bakery products or fruit are the waxed variety, correct?
Not correct.
They are a compostable material. The materials used to make them include plants, vegetable oils and a compostable resin called Mater-Bi, the world's first bio-polymer made from corn.