21–24 of 24 posts
I hardly ever drink coffee, but don't people generally prefer a ceramic mug? This seems like a cost-cutting measure from Starbucks to save collecting and washing cups and mugs.
I'm not convinced there's much benefit to trying to recycle single use plastic containers anyway. We should be reducing their use, but as long as they end up in landfills instead of waterways, it's not too bad - the carbon will remain sequestered there until either future generations reprocess it or the earth turns it into oil over millions of years. In theory you could recycle all types of plastic via pyrolysis (less so for PVC), but it's expensive & inefficient & you still end up losing material & likely releasing CO2. I did some reading on it a few months ago & came to the conclusion it's probably better to pyrolize organic material & just bury the waste plastic for now. (Pyrolysis of wood, organic waste, etc. can produce chemical feedstocks & fuels & still be carbon negative if it's run on solar/nuclear b/c of the bio char fraction).
The biggest harms around plastic pollution come from the fishing industry, mass dumping in 3rd world countries, & shady international "recyclers" who end up dumping the plastic or burning it in open air.
Recyclable or not, it's completely absurd that one-time-use cups are used for on-premises consumption in the first place. Given that it (surely!) takes vastly more resources to manufacture from scratch, transport to the place of use, and then dispose of an entire plastic cup than to rinse out a reusable container, there is clearly something desperately wrong with the accounting of the "invisible hand", which is meant…
I also dislike the lack of mugs in coffee shops. Big chains don't have them at all, and local shops you need to specifically ask for it or they assume a paper cup. I'm often the only person drinking out of a mug in a coffee shop full of people. But I'm a grumpy old man that doesn't understand today's world, and I accept that. Leaving work to drive to Starbucks and buy a coffee (instead of using the kuerig or espresso…