2011 Milwaukee Area Earth Day Freebies
Looking for Earth Day promotions in Milwaukee? There are a few businesses in the area that are participating in giveaways for Earth Day.
- As we wrote about previously, Starbucks is offering free coffee or tea to customers that bring in their own reusable travel mug. If you don’t have a travel mug (and really, who doesn’t??), you can buy a fashionably overpriced Starbucks mug for 20% off today!
- Caribou Coffee is also offering a free cup of coffee today to those who bring in their own mug. Did you know that Caribou will give you $0.50 off of your coffee any day that you come in with your own mug? We like that better than Starbucks $0.10 discount.
- Lowe’s is giving away a million trees nationwide on Saturday April 23rd.
- Bring five plastic shopping bags to the Disney Store and receive a free reusable Mickey Mouse shopping bag.
Did we miss any? Leave a comment if you know of a Milwaukee area business offering Earth Day promotions!
Thanks to Bargain Briana for information on the Caribou Coffee promotion!
Free Starbucks Coffee on Earth Day
Starbucks is offering free brewed coffee or tea on Earth Day, Friday April 22nd, to customers who bring in their own reusable coffee mug. In an effort to reduce waste (and cut costs), Starbucks is encouraging customers to switch from paper cups to reusable mugs. In fact, customers who use reusable mugs get $0.10 off their drinks at Starbucks every day. If you don’t have a reusable mug, Starbucks will be reducing the prices of their mugs by 20% on Earth Day.
More information about the Starbucks Earth Day promotion can be found on the Starbucks website.
To maximize this deal, see if you can find a coffee cup like this one! 
Earth Day Giveaway Goes Wrong at Popeyes Chicken
We have an interesting follow-up to our Earth Day freebies post from earlier in the week. One of the Earth Day specials that we missed was a special at Popeyes Chicken for 8 pieces of chicken for $4.99.
Maybe it is a good thing that we missed it.
It turns out that although the $4.99 special was advertised nationally, not all locations were participating. This led to some pretty upset customers at a Minneapolis Popeyes, as you’ll see in the video below. Apparently the special was advertised by Popeye’s corporate office, and franchise locations were given the option of whether or not they wanted to participate. This particular franchise decided not to participate. As you’ll see in the video, that didn’t sit well with many customers. From a consumer standpoint, it is disappointing that franchisees are given the option of whether or not to participate in company wide promotions. The moral of the story here is to call ahead to confirm a deal.
Milwaukee Area Earth Day Freebies
Many retailers will use any opportunity to promote themselves through free publicity and giveaways, especially in this economy. We have seen all kinds of freebies on non-traditional holidays recently – election day, tax day, and now Earth Day. The following offers are available from national retailers with a presence in the Milwaukee area:
- Whole Foods is giving away free reusable lunch bags through April 26th. Present this coupon to get your free bag.
- The Disney Store will give you a free Disney water bottle if you bring in 3 empty plastic bottles.
- Walgreens is giving away free reusable shopping bags today. To get yours, present this coupon to get your free bag & other 15-20% off other items in the store.
In addition to those listed above, there have been rumors on the internet about free coffee at Starbucks today if you bring in your own coffee mug. We spoke with a barista at our closest Starbucks and she said that there was no official promotion today, but she would give us free coffee if we brought in our own mug. If you want to try this, we suggest calling ahead first!
If you know of any giveaways around town that we missed, leave a comment and let us know.
Earth Day Advice – Manage Your WE Energies Costs
Regular readers of our blog know that our goal at Milwaukee Consumer is to provide local consumers with useful information for purchasing decisions. Since today is Earth Day, today is the perfect day for us to share our plans on bringing you more information in the future to help you save money on your electric and gas bills.
Why is this important? Of course, there are all the environmental concerns associated with power plants. However, not only is the environment affected by power plant operations, but your pocketbook is too! In fact, WE Energies is projecting that rates will increase 4.9% in 2010 and 4.5% in 2011! As incomes are dropping, unemployment is rising, and budgets are getting tighter for everyone, this potential increase might be painful for a lot of local consumers. While you might not have a lot of control over WE Energies rates, you do have control over your energy usage. Watch for our posts in the near future to help you reduce your energy consumption.
To get you started moving in the right direction, here is a link to a page on WEenergies website to help consumers manage their costs. Material on their website includes how natural gas prices are set, how electric prices are set, and videos to help you reduce your electric and gas bill.
And here’s a little Earth Day fact for you – Earth Day was founded by Wisconsin’s own Gaylord Nelson. For a background on Earth Day, check out Wikipedia.
Previous posts related to environmental issues: