Would paying 25 cents for a coffee cup make you bring your own? This Montrealer hopes so

Olivia St-Laurent wants Montreal's independent coffee shops to charge an extra 25 cents to customers who don't bring in their own cup.

St-Laurentis inviting the city's independent coffee shops to produce less waste.Getting people to pay for their single use cups is a good first step to doing that, she said.

St-Laurent consulted with a number of cafs in Montreal and says she's garnered interest in her initiative. She is holding a meeting on it with the participating cafsTuesday evening.

"We want this to become the norm and hopefully we can influence the other independent cafsin Montreal, who haven't joined us just yet, and all the other bigger companies, like Starbucks and Tim Hortons," St-Laurent said on CBCMontreal'sDaybreak.

The idea came to her when she was volunteering as a barista in Australia for 10 months, said St-Laurent, who is in environmental studies at McGill University.

"The amount of waste just really blew my mind and so I offered them to instill more environmental practices and they went really well."

She said she wants the Montrealcafsto commit to composting, buying more biodegradable packaging as well as using less of it.

"The end goal is setting new industry standards for cafsin Montreal," she said.