While we're talking about coffee and recycling...I'm pretty sure there's more plastic in a K-cup then there is coffee.
Thankfully, they make reusable k-cups that work surprisingly well and much cheaper than disposable ones. I highly recommend.
Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
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Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#42Easy. Just don’t go to Starbucks and drink your espresso at home in a cup.
Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#43This is misguided. Let's say this campaign succeeds. Maybe 10% of the cups will be recycled, leaving still a ton of waste. It would be much more effective to campaign against single-use cups. I grew up in a time in which you had to bring an empty bottle glass bottle to a shop, and they would take it and give you a full one, which you'd bring back empty next time. If you didn't have one, you'd leave a deposit (effecti…
That’s how it still worked in the 90s in post-communist Central European countries. Then we got flooded with plastic just like the Westerners.
Similar thing in Austin, TX. City banned single use plastic bags, so HEB (the largest grocer) introduced durable reusable plastic bags to purchase. Unsurprisingly, people ate the cost, treated them like single use bags, and now we have an even worse waste problem.
Liberal policymaking in a nutshell.
Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#44This is misguided. Let's say this campaign succeeds. Maybe 10% of the cups will be recycled, leaving still a ton of waste. It would be much more effective to campaign against single-use cups. I grew up in a time in which you had to bring an empty bottle glass bottle to a shop, and they would take it and give you a full one, which you'd bring back empty next time. If you didn't have one, you'd leave a deposit (effecti…
Wondering what the economics of keeping single use cups but making them out of aluminum would look like? It’s one of the more valuable recyclables (to the point where homeless people will collect them to make some money).
Is aluminum recycling actually valuable to society, or is it only valuable due to the deposit?
Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#45This is misguided. Let's say this campaign succeeds. Maybe 10% of the cups will be recycled, leaving still a ton of waste. It would be much more effective to campaign against single-use cups. I grew up in a time in which you had to bring an empty bottle glass bottle to a shop, and they would take it and give you a full one, which you'd bring back empty next time. If you didn't have one, you'd leave a deposit (effecti…
I remember when the bakery chain popular here (Baker Square) had a 25 cent credit on every aluminum pie tray. The value was stamped into it so everyone knew it had cash value to return.
Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#46"The paper cups Starbucks currently uses contain a plastic lining" When someone says "Paper" cup, I assume paper and some kind of wax as a sealant, not plastic. I wonder if this violates any kind of FDA or FTC rules?
I was recently surprised to learn that metal cans are also lined with plastic.
Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wondering what the economics of keeping single use cups but making them out of aluminum would look like? It’s one of the more valuable recyclables (to the point where homeless people will collect them to make some money).
Is aluminum recycling actually valuable to society, or is it only valuable due to the deposit?
Aluminum is basically the easiest recyclable material to recycle, and the most cost effective. In places without a deposit, you can still sell bags of aluminum cans to scrap recyclers by weight.
Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#48Not only are they not recyclable, but there's a water cost, energy cost, and a pollution cost to making them. Obviously the fate of humanity doesn't depend on what we do with our coffee cups. But in my opinion the best solution is to have people bring their own cups and just reuse them, and unfortunately only a small percent of people do that. Back in grad school, to get people to bring their own cups more often, we…
I've seen someone bring their own bags to the grocery store like four or five times since the bag ban got implemented here in LA County. Everyone just gets the thicker plastic "reusable" bags and treats them as disposable. Honestly I think it has made things worse when it comes to the amount of plastic use.
That seems weird, to me. To see it so little, I lived in GA from 2010-2020 and there was no bag ban. I saw way more reusable bags than just four or five times over the last 5 years I was there (about the same time as the bag ban has been in effect in CA). And this was going to the bog standard grocery stores, nothing fancy.
Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#49We need to stop trying to recycle things, and start burning them for energy. It's simply better for the environment. It suffers from not "looking" green, which matters far more to people than actually being green.
This is referred to as Waste Valorization[1] and is common in Europe with high temperature incinerators.
[1] There are other forms of valorization other than heat generation; but this one is the easiest to implement at scale.
Re: Impact Campaign: SEAL Calls On Starbucks To #UpTheCup
#50Not only are they not recyclable, but there's a water cost, energy cost, and a pollution cost to making them. Obviously the fate of humanity doesn't depend on what we do with our coffee cups. But in my opinion the best solution is to have people bring their own cups and just reuse them, and unfortunately only a small percent of people do that. Back in grad school, to get people to bring their own cups more often, we…
>But in my opinion the best solution is to have people bring their own cups and just reuse them, and unfortunately only a small percent of people do that. You could also just make your own coffee at home and cut out the entire environmental impact of doing business with a wasteful company at all. But this doesn't solve the problem of "I'm somewhere with no coffee, and I want coffee" which Starbucks does. Focusing on…
Arguably, from an environmental and resources standpoint, isn't it better to centralize coffee-making in a few coffee shops rather everyone having their own coffee making equipment at home?