Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Coffee Cups Are Next

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

411–420 of 447 posts

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#411

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

bsaul wrote: post #223
cstrat wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just hurts to read... It is almost as bad as the somewhat inexplicable growth in bottled water in places where tap water is perfectly acceptable. In fact many of the branded bottles of water are not spring water but bottled tap water.

this story i keep hearing about tap water beeing just as good as bottle one is really starting to get on my nerves. people don’t spend their money and carry huge loads of water bottles if they can have the equivalent for « free » at home. 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, even in the cases where the origina…

My chemistry teacher reports that she has issues when she drinks the city water because something something surgically-removed kidney stones.

You might also have to modify the chemical makeup of the tap water itself.

Personally, I drink tap, but that's mostly because someone won't hook up the fridge (and nobody else in the family likes ice, for some reason.)

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#412

Post by acchow »

01100011 wrote: post #322
acchow wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Styrofoam essentially lasts forever. The planet has finite landfill space. Also, not everything ends up in the landfill but ends up polluting our oceans instead. Unlike paper which will eventually decompose in the ocean, styrofoam will just pile up.

Landfills are storage units and will likely turn into vast repositories of useful materials when we have the energy and technology to sort through them. What is wrong with styrofoam piling up? According to wikipedia, styrofoam doesn't essentially last forever. Also, what's with the downvotes for asking a question? This place really seems to be going the way of reddit. Too bad... was a nice place to discuss the facts…

It's not dogma. You are saying "what's wrong with using things once then shoving it in a landfill".

That behavior doesn't scale and is unsustainable.

And that mentality leads to ever increasing pollution.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#413

Post by bubblewrap »

fifnir wrote: post #388
bubblewrap wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country, plastic bottles have returnable deposits, so they tend to not end in the dump. There are also glass bottles available. That said, I think plastic can be OK if it is trashed adequately. I don't think my plastic bottles end up in the oceans.

Even if it gets recycled, it's not free. Raw materials need to be collected, processed, and transfered. The bottle-quality plastic has to be created and transfeed to the bottle making factory. The bottles transfered again potentially, filled with water, wrapped in more plastic, transfered again.... all that before recycling.

Filters are also not free.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#414

Post by czottmann »

usefulcat wrote: post #82
zeta0134 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth pointing out that the obvious alternative, reusable to-go cups, need to solve an additional set of challenges: - Must NOT violate sanitization of the work area; cups provided by customers should not pose any health risks to workers or other customers. - Should be durable enough to survive repeated visits - Either the reusable cup must conform to a standard size, baristas need a way to measure liquids consi…

Seems like some sort of deposit system might work. First time, customer buys an inexpensive but reusable cup, which they can take with them. On a following visit, customer exchanges this cup for a clean one, which they can also keep or trade in on a subsequent visit. The retailer would have to wash the cups but at least that would solve the sanitation and consistent serving size issues. After too much wear and tear t…

You've just described my company, https://RECUP.de – it's working very well. Cup deposit is €1, and you can return your cup all over Germany at participating coffee shops and bakeries. At the moment we're at 2500 locations and growing steadily. The system is financed by a daily fee paid by the participating stores, €1 per day per location.

Source: I'm one of the co-founders and CTO. :)

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#415

Post by kristopolous »

chrisco255 wrote: post #389
kristopolous wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how were they sourced? How were they manufactured? How did they get to the point of consumption? How were they packaged when they arrived? How do they get to the garbage site? You have to include all the steps of how it got from tree to your hand and your hand back into the Earth. There's still plenty of pollution in that process even if the object itself isn't part of it.

From mix of recycled and new trees. Trees which are farmed in the U.S. and sustainably managed. And trees which, by the way, absorb carbon.

The vehicles to get there and transport them and equipment to cut them used petroleum. The machines to manufacture the units from the tree parts used fossil fuels, there was waste in the production that's nonrenewable.

The whole process, as in the whole entire complete every step of the way process has to be looked at

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#416

Post by truckerbill »

DanBC wrote: post #383
truckerbill wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Washing a ceramic mug is clearly the better choice environmentally-or bring your own reusable to-go cup.

You say clearly, but the full lifetime calculation is difficult. I have no idea how the clay is obtained, transported to the mug factory, how it's turned into mugs, how the mugs are transported to shops and then to cafés and homes. I don't know how to include the detergent used to wash them, or the dishwasher. I guess we need to include the hot water, but how much of the plumbing do we include? I also don't know any…

True, can't pretend to know either. Reuse, in as many of those areas you mentioned as possible, seems like the key way to optimise.

Using second-hand ceramic or glass is maybe a good thing to think about. No signalling of demand to a manufacturer, maximising return on the initial co2 cost... Perhaps not viable in every situation.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#417

Post by chronogram »

apexalpha wrote: post #397
chronogram wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tap water here in the Netherlands is excellent, and I’d much prefer it over bottled water, but that’s only available in places where you’d take your jacket off: home, friends, work, school, hairdresser and the likes. If you’re going somewhere you can bring water or buy water in bottles, but I’ve never seen other ways of getting water.

>Tap water here in the Netherlands is excellent, and I’d much prefer it over bottled water Tap water and bottled water in Utrecht are pumped from EXACTLY the same source. :)

Oh really? No wonder the bottled water is so good ;-)

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#418

Post by accnumnplus1 »

brador wrote: post #398
zrobotics wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So do you use LOC as the primary metric for productivity? I've definitely had insights into a current project while performing a mindless task like washing dishes, in fact there are certain times where I will seek out a task like that. To me, the bigger WTF is having to train people to use a dishwasher--hopefully that is something most adults can be expected to know how to do already.

Having the dishwasher as a choice is one thing, forcing it? That’s crossing a line. And you know you’ll get that all seeing eye watching who isn’t washing their cups and scheming to make their life hell. Serenity is priceless for coders.

Serenity is priceless for coders.

This is pricelessly succint. If there is one guiding principal for creating office space, this should be it.

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#419

Post by solatic »

In our office, it's not an issue that people don't wash their cups out, because our building has a cleaning crew and they wash the cups for us. Why is that so difficult?

If you operate a coffee shop and don't want your customers to give you dirty coffee cups, make it easier for your customers to give you clean cups. That means having some kind of customer-facing sink or washing station towards which a sign directs customers to wash their mugs, regardless of whether they are already clean since we all know different people have different standards for cleanliness.

If you have co-workers who ride their bikes to work, we don't hem and haw over how smelly bike riders are going to be on hot summer days and how there's gotta be some alternative to them riding their bikes. Instead, we install on-premises showers. Bike riders are happy to take showers when they arrive. The showers are kept clean by the facility's cleaning crew. Everybody's happy. Why is this so complicated?

Re: Coffee Cups Are Next

#420

Post by kristopolous »

bubblewrap wrote: post #413
fifnir wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it gets recycled, it's not free. Raw materials need to be collected, processed, and transfered. The bottle-quality plastic has to be created and transfeed to the bottle making factory. The bottles transfered again potentially, filled with water, wrapped in more plastic, transfered again.... all that before recycling.

Filters are also not free.

Sure we aren't at zero yet. But dropping the ecological footprint by 99% is a good first step.
Post reply on HN