Three major coffee chains, Hollys Coffee, Caffe bene and Angel-in-us Coffee, will serve their coffee only in mugs inside their coffee houses from Aug.1, the environment ministry said Thursday.

Hollys Coffee will use only mugs in about 300 franchisee cafes nationwide, excluding expressway service areas or airports. Caffe bene will use mugs in its 314 shops in stages until 2012. It will test the waters at its 16 local shops, then expand its mug policy to 220 shops by the end of the year. Angel-in-us Coffee will implement the similar policy at 52 shops from Aug. 1.

The Environment Ministry expects a total of 3.1 billion won ($2.9 million) to be saved as the number of disposable paper cups currently used at about 900 shops of three coffee chains annually will be reduced by 21 million cups.

Still, customers who take out coffees will still be able to have their coffee in disposable paper cups.

For customers who bring their own cups, Hollys Coffee will provide 10 percent discount; Caffe bene 300 won ($0.28) per cup, and Angel-in-us Coffee will offer another free cup of coffee.

On Thursday, Minister of Environment Yoo Young-sook and three representatives of the coffee chains held a campaign to promote the use of mugs by offering free coffee to pedestrians on the Cheonggye Plaza, central Seoul.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)