ASPEN - Boden's Butter, of Aspen, emerged victorious and Dos Gringos in Carbondale was a close second in last week's Reusable Cup Challenge, which gave coffee shops throughout the valley the chance to engage customers in reducing waste.

Of the 13 shops that participated in the city of Aspen's event, only Boden's Butter and Dos Gringos exceeded 50 percent of drink sales in reusable cups.

During the competition, customers chose reusable cups over disposable paper or Styrofoam cups when getting coffee at local cafes. Each participating coffee shop counted the number of reusable cups used each day and asked customers to help it win by remembering to bring their own cups or to ask for reusable cups when staying in.

Tallies were collected each day, and the winner was the location with the largest percentage of reusable cups during the week.

"The third year of the Cup Challenge was a huge success for businesses and their customers," said Ashley Perl, a city environmental health specialist. "Hopefully, everyone will keep bringing their reusable mugs and keep up all the good habits that we saw this week."

The Reusable Cup Challenge was sponsored by Waste Free Roaring Fork, a collaborative working group of local residents, in partnership with the city, the Community Office for Resource Efficiency and other entities. Waste Free Roaring Fork maintains a website for waste reduction resources in the valley at www.wastefreeroaringfork.com.

To help customers, free reusable mugs were available at Aspen City Hall and CORE's Carbondale office. The mugs still are available for customers looking to keep up the reusable habit.