The availability of clean water will eventually become a big problem. How will continually washing cups help anything?
Coffee Cups Are Next
161–170 of 447 posts
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can care about two things (or even more)
True, but you should probably do something about the bigger problem first because there's no point in re-carpeting if the house is on fire
So, we should never do anything until all the starving are fed, and all murders and rapists are locked up? Genius.
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I've read the reusables have to be used ~70 times to be more environmentally friendly than the current disposables. I think the easiest win would be designating between sit down and take out customers. Sit down customers could be given porcelain or some other washable container. However this would increase labor costs for businesses so you don't automatically get a free win.
This stat gets thrown around for a lot of different kinds of reusable products but what no one ever mentions is what does environmentally friendly actually mean. When I have looked it up its always simply looking at energy usage to produce the product when by far the biggest impact of our throwaway products is that they end up blowing around the streets or they fall in to the ocean. And even if you do put them in the…
I have a few reusable, resealable glass coffee cups, and I don’t know that I got 70 uses out of them before I dropped one as I was washing it and it shattered. I’ll be buying plastic reusable cups next time, even though they’re not as nice to use, because for someone as clumsy as me, the risk of breaking a glass object that needs to be hand-washed regularly and is intended to be used while moving around is quite high.
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
This same thing is unfolding in my office. They are getting rid of paper cups but no one washes their dishes. I don't understand what's wrong with paper cups? They are biodegradable.
If they have a plastic lining on the inside (for waterproofing) then they’re not
According to the article they are, but only if you have a machine to separate the wax lining.
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pretending to be ignorant of externalities doesn't mean they stop existing
The solution is to create better conveniences, not to ban them like luddites and go back to the 18th century. Also, first world problems. Also, despite first world problems, first world has other more important problems that should be solved, like drug addicts, homelessness, and crime, maybe the people's council should focus on that instead of this?
That's the solution, yes. But without an incentive, we'll never get there. The first step towards creating an incentive is to make it economically unfeasible to not have an incentive. It's not like people will stop drinking coffee, they'll demand an alternative and one will be created. If a plastic cup costs $0.17 and a biodegradable cup costs $0.18, businesses and consumers will choose plastic. Making plastic slightly more expensive than the healthier alternative creates that pressure so the market will come up with better options.
Cleaning up waste costs money, money that the maker of the cup doesn't pay. Money that Starbucks doesn't pay. Money that the consumer doesn't pay. It's only cheaper at the cost of the person who has to clean up the waste. Plastic is heavily subsidized by not having to pay for its own cleanup.
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#166I honestly don't see why this is a problem. I use my straw, or my coffee cup, or whatever, and I throw it in a trash can. It's not going to hurt any marine mammals unless you, the city government, go and dump it into the sea. So don't do that. If you can no longer put your trash on a barge to China, put it on a train instead and bury it somewhere in the enormous deserts that cover one third of the country. I don't wa…
Nothing, whatever, could be wrong with me. The world must be as it is, logically. Why try to improve? And if you say we must, I'll question, flail, pout, and then call it unjust. Don't tell me it's my fault, for I just got here. I'll blame it on past people, maybe a peer. My life is just fine, and if others' are not, Well, life's just unfair, they deserve what they got! Do it for children, you'll say, and I'll sneer,…
The guy has a point, and all you do is dodge and shame. Landfills take a tiny portion of space in the US. Why are we so concerned?
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
> what a bad idea the phone charger thing was The correct approach there would have been telling the industry to get their shit together and agree on one standard (and then mandate that, not "that or an adapter" like what they let Apple get away with), under the threat that otherwise they'll make a standard for them.
I would argue that the industry do this already. On the part of Apple, lightning was undoubtedly better than micro-usb, and switching immediately to usb-c would arguably create more e-waste. Also, Apple is probably more sustainable than many other companies.
As the owner of several Apple devices with 30-pin connectors, which I replaced with devices with Lightning connectors, which it seems I will have to replace with devices with USB-C connectors in a few years, I would have been happier if Apple never invented either of those proprietary connectors and just went from micro-USB to USB-C like most of its competitors.
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#168Good. They are a plague. However, I admit that occasionally, if I've forgotten my cup or couldn't bring it, I still use them. Rarely, but it happens.
The solution I want to see, for both coffee cups and shopping bags - is reusable shared containers.
I don't want to have to bring my bags to the supermarket. It's not just a matter of laziness or forgetfulness - sure, sometimes I forget. But it's also a matter of ability. Sometimes I want to buy food on the way home from work, but I don't drive there and it's not really practical to bring my reusable bags every time.
Let me pay a deposit to take some reusable bags with me, then let me just bring them all back at once and get a refund.
Coffee cups are a bit harder since they need to be washed, but I'm sure there's a solution.
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#169Ask HN: Would a disposable metal cup be totally out of the question? Something like a coke can without the ring pull lid?
With a lip around the rim I can't imagine them being any more flimsy than paper cups. The lid and sleeve could be 100% biodegradable since their time of contact with hot liquids is minimal, and the cups themselves could have a 25c/p deposit scheme to dissuade litter/promote collection of discarded cups.
They must be cheap enough to produce en mass for coke/Pepsi et al, and I recently learnt that metal cans are apparently much better for the environment than plastic since they can apparently be recycled nearly an infinite amount of times (easy to mechanically sort too) compared to plastic and paper that can only be recycled a handful of times before degrading too much for reuse.
Just looked on Alibaba and you can get reusable rigid steel cups for less than a dollar a piece in quantities of 1000. Seems like the price for single-use recyclable steel/ALU cups getting gown to the 17-20c (apparently what a paper cup costs) range would not be out of the question?
Re: Coffee Cups Are Next
#170Good. They are a plague. However, I admit that occasionally, if I've forgotten my cup or couldn't bring it, I still use them. Rarely, but it happens. The solution I want to see, for both coffee cups and shopping bags - is reusable shared containers. I don't want to have to bring my bags to the supermarket. It's not just a matter of laziness or forgetfulness - sure, sometimes I forget. But it's also a matter of abilit…
Shopping bags need to be washed, too. Meat juices, being set down on dirty surfaces (bus stop, muddy driveway), left for a week in a house with pests or vermin, etc. Most people are not going to want to reuse someone else's reusable bag without laundering.