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Coffee Cups Are Next

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Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#331

Post by OscarCunningham »

flarg wrote: post #259

By using disposable cups, aren't coffee shops extracting value from the environment but not paying for the privilege? Surely the correct answer is to ban disposable cups and let the market decide who survives? My local sit down cafe does very well with reusable ceramic mugs. Why should the likes of Starbucks get special financial assistance from the environment when the cafe doesn't need it?

Better yet, determine the level of damage caused by a disposable cup and charge a tax large enough to repair the damage. If people still decide to use disposable cups then we won't care since we'll have the money.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#332

Post by dannyw »

Scoundreller wrote: post #196
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The simple and impactful solution is charging for the cup. Here in CA, we have to pay 10 cents per grocery bag . I could buy a few thousand of them over my lifetime and it would not impact me very much but somehow I can't get myself to pay the 10 cents, since it's going to end up in the trash, so I carry my reusable bags to the store all the time. A solution that would really work would be to band cities from exporti…

But what bags do you use in your wastebaskets???

I just buy a plastic bag.

Wait.

I’m not sure if this whole thing reduces any plastic or pollution...

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#333

Post by john61 »

satori99 wrote: post #96

A former workplace of mine mandated that no-one was allowed to use re-usable coffee mugs at all. This was done because of the mass of dirty, moldy cups that seemed to fill every kitchenette in a multi-floor building. The business was a media organization and it seemed to me like reporters were the worst culprits. The company provided styrofoam cups which were consumed at a enormous rate, and this was deemed to be a b…

Classical management failure of solving a social problem with social measures.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#334

Post by alex_duf »

Brotkrumen wrote: post #328
sampo wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> either you have the 3 minutes it takes to sip on a cappuccino or hot tea, or you drink an espresso standing It's more about having a drink to sip on, when you're driving in your car to work, than about having or not having 3 minutes to sit in a cafe.

If you wanna be a hippie like me, get one of those coffee thermos. Most cafés will fill those up in place of their cups if you ask them. Some even give a discount.

I know it's probably self-deprecating sarcasm, but I wish we didn't have to be hippies to care about the environment.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#335

Post by maccard »

xorfish wrote: post #309
kristopolous wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then put a $50 filter at the tap and you're good for probably $25,000 of bottled water. It's marketing that drives the preference. That's why most chronic bottled water drinkers I know surround their life with other bullshit irrelevant products. It's the same mechanics

How do you spend $25'000 on bottled water? Where I'm from it costs 16.5 cents per liter. That includes a 2 cent tax for recycling the PET Bottle. $25'000 is more than you need in several lifetimes. But then again, tab water here is excellent and also cool. So I don't see a reason why I should transport bottled water. It is much more convenient and cheaper.

> How do you spend $25'000 on bottled water? Where I'm from it costs 16.5 cents per liter. That includes a 2 cent tax for recycling the PET Bottle.

Many people drinking bottled water aren't drinking the cheapest in the supermarket - the recycling bin outside my flat is regularly filled with 1.5l evian bottles - they're £1 each in the local shop. At one bottle a day, that's ~35 person-years. Not common, but not insane.

However, my office has 17 people on my floor. If everyone here drank one bottle of it a day, we'd hit it in 2 years.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#336

Post by michaelt »

megaremote wrote: post #157
colordrops wrote: post #151

I'm curious what percentage of non-biodegradable waste is from cups and straws. I suspect there are much bigger fish to fry. It would be a bit more work and coordination but it seems that a standard set of 30-50 different metal/ceramic containers could serve most packaging purposes at grocery stores. If marketing/branding is an issue, some soy or other non-toxic ink could be used to print labels and decoration on the…

It is not always about the biggest, but easiest to replace. When getting people to do something they do not want to do, that is what you aim for. Also doing what is possible, as to the impossible.

What I worry about is that politicians will prefer low-impact high-visibility policies over high-impact low-visibility policies. Which for some reason, sometimes they do.

For example, Californian politicians introduced a ban on restaurants providing tap water without being asked.... while subsidising irrigation water for farmers that uses several orders of magnitude more water.

I don't know why they'd do that - maybe ignorance, receiving bad advice, cynical political posturing, corruption, or something else - but it's frustrating to see the political energy to solve a real problem being wasted on things that won't solve the problem.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#337

Post by lazerwalker »

lsc wrote: post #282
scotty79 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they do it’s because the tap water infrastructure (as a whole, up to the kitchen’s tap) alter the taste and quality of the water badly enough... That's not it. People don't drink tap water because they don't believe it's safe. People who don't drink tap water usually have no trouble drinking it after it's boiled. And non carbonated bottled water tastes just like tap water and you couldn't tell the two apart if t…

I am pretty sure that you could tell the difference between a brand of water that is distilled + minerals added and a brand of water that was not distilled in a blind taste test, especially if you drink mostly water. I think there are even pretty big differences, say, between the tap water in Santa Clara and the tap water in Milpitas, for example. I mean, If your argument is that bottled water is wasteful, I'm not di…

I recall doing a science project in middle school where I did double-blind taste tests of tap water with a half-dozen brands of bottled water (in a place with decent-tasting tap water, FWIW). IIRC, people showed no statistically significant preference for Evian or other fancy bottled water over the local tap water.

That isn't to say that there's no taste difference, but that preferring a specific brand of bottled water is likely to be much more about the subconscious effect of marketing than something a priori more enjoyable about the mineral content of a specific brand.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#338

Post by maccard »

fouc wrote: post #150
satori99 wrote: post #96

A former workplace of mine mandated that no-one was allowed to use re-usable coffee mugs at all. This was done because of the mass of dirty, moldy cups that seemed to fill every kitchenette in a multi-floor building. The business was a media organization and it seemed to me like reporters were the worst culprits. The company provided styrofoam cups which were consumed at a enormous rate, and this was deemed to be a b…

Interestingly I remember seeing signs at Booster Juice company that talked about why they chose to keep using styrofoam cups for environmental reasons. Because the carbon footprint of producing non-styrofoam cups was apparently much higher.

Than single use paper cups yes, the energy required is much higher. Unfortunately they're not comparing against reusable cups.

A reusable glasscup breaks even in terms of energy vs a styrofoam at ~50 re uses. That doesn't price in the lifetime cost of disposing of the styrofoam, and glass is pretty much inert.

[0] https://terngoods.com/blogs/learn/cups-single-use-disposable...

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#339

Post by navigatesol »

bubblewrap wrote: post #253
kristopolous wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then put a $50 filter at the tap and you're good for probably $25,000 of bottled water. It's marketing that drives the preference. That's why most chronic bottled water drinkers I know surround their life with other bullshit irrelevant products. It's the same mechanics

Filters seem like a lot of hassle, though. You have to keep them clean and exchange them on a regular basis. I don't really trust that solution.

>I don't really trust that solution.

What other-worldly solution do you think the bottling companies are using?

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#340

Post by maccard »

partiallypro wrote: post #144
satori99 wrote: post #96

A former workplace of mine mandated that no-one was allowed to use re-usable coffee mugs at all. This was done because of the mass of dirty, moldy cups that seemed to fill every kitchenette in a multi-floor building. The business was a media organization and it seemed to me like reporters were the worst culprits. The company provided styrofoam cups which were consumed at a enormous rate, and this was deemed to be a b…

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.

> I don't understand what's wrong with paper cups? They are biodegradable.

Firstly, they require quite a lot of water and energy to produce and bleach, especially compared to a styrofoam cup.

Secondly, they are still wasteful. Using a glass cup costs less after about 20 uses.

Thirdly, biodegradable is being flung around as a solution, but it only is if you actually dispose of the waste correctly. if it goes to landfill, chances are it won't biodegrade in any reasonable timeframe. Also, biodegradable materials degrade usually into CO2, which is what we're trying to prevent from escaping in the first case.

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