42,000 Cups and Counting: How Your Daily Habit Is Changing the World
There's a moment that happens at every one of our five locations, dozens of times a day. Someone walks through the door, reusable cup in hand, sets it on the counter, and orders their usual. It's a small gesture. It takes about three extra seconds. And over the course of a year, those three seconds add up to something extraordinary.
That's the quiet power behind OZO's Own Cup Program, and we want to take a moment to celebrate what this community has built together.
What Is the Own Cup Program?
Simple, really: bring in your own reusable cup and you get $0.25 off every drink, every day. No punch card. No app. No minimum spend. Just a small reward for a habit that makes a real difference.
We launched the program because we believe sustainability shouldn't feel like sacrifice. It should feel like good coffee and a little money back in your pocket.
The Numbers That Stopped Us in Our Tracks
In 2024, our community brought in reusable cups over 42,000 times. That's 42,000 disposable cups that never ended up in a landfill, representing an estimated 1,800 lbs of waste kept out of the waste stream.
To put that in perspective: 1,800 lbs is roughly the weight of a small car. Diverted from landfills. Not because of a corporate mandate or a policy change, but because Boulder showed up, cup in hand, one order at a time.
And Then Came 2025
We're proud to share that the momentum continued to grow. In 2025, the OZO community brought in reusable cups over 42,250 times, keeping an estimated 1,800 lbs of waste out of landfills. That's more than 250 additional cups diverted compared to 2024, a quiet but meaningful signal that this habit is becoming more deeply rooted in our community.
Every single cup in that count belongs to someone in this community. Someone who remembered to grab their mug on the way out the door. Someone who made it part of their routine. We see you, and this is your number.
And the Own Cup Program was just one piece of a bigger reusable push in 2025. Across our locations, we tracked over 14,877 Airscape canister refills (saving roughly 595 lbs of packaging), distributed 1,294 reusable Brute containers to eliminate over 6,000 single-use bags, and sold 2,543 GaeaStar clay cups as a permanent alternative to disposables. The picture adds up to something significant: a community that's quietly, consistently choosing differently.
Don't have a reusable cup yet? GaeaStar clay cups are available at all five OZO locations. Made from natural clay, water, and salt, they're designed to be reused and then returned to the earth — no plastic lining, no landfill. Learn more about the GaeaStar cup.
Why Single-Use Cups Are Worth Talking About
The average disposable coffee cup is made with a plastic liner that prevents it from being recycled through most curbside programs. It looks like paper. It acts like plastic. And it almost always ends up in a landfill, where it takes decades to break down.
When you bring in a reusable cup, you're opting out of that cycle entirely. And the more people who opt out together, the more it matters. That's the thing about community-driven sustainability: it compounds.
Sustainability at Origin and In Your Cup
The Own Cup Program is one piece of a larger picture. At OZO, sustainability runs through everything we do, from how we source our coffee to how we serve it.
Take our ongoing partnership with the Sholi Cooperative in Rwanda, a women-led collective whose name means "mutual assistance" in Kinyarwanda. Through our International Women's Day giveback campaigns, our community raised $2,007.21 for Sholi in 2025, funds that helped fuel a 265% increase in honey output through their beekeeping initiative. The farmers who grow our coffee are building something lasting. The least we can do is make sure the cups we serve it in aren't doing damage on this end.
How to Participate
It couldn't be simpler. Bring a clean reusable cup, any cup, your cup, to any of our five locations. Hand it to your barista. They'll take $0.25 off your drink. That's it.
Whether it's a travel mug, a vintage mason jar, or one of our OZO-branded cups from the shop, it all counts. The only requirement is that it's yours, and that you brought it.
Thank You
None of these numbers happen without you. The 42,000 cups in 2024. The 42,250 in 2025. Every single one is a choice someone in this community made, to do something small that's part of something bigger.
We're proud to be your coffee shop, and even prouder to be part of a community that gives a damn. See you at the counter, cup in hand.