I remember as a kid in the 90s there was coffee mugs made of potato starch. It was said you could even eat the mug itself if you wanted to. Wonder what happened to those?
All got eaten?
Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
61–70 of 126 posts
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
People drink in their car all over the world, what makes it "very American"?
Here in the UK it's quite unusual for a coffee shop to have parking facilities. Drinking takeaway coffee is practically always done by people who are walking somewhere.
I'm in the UK too, and I've found there are separate coffee shops that are focused on pedestrians vs car users. The first are your typical shops on the high street (which yes you could park near to but that's not really the focus) while the second are in motorway services or in a retail park built around a car park (what Americans would call a "strip mall"). If you're a regular user of either one then it's quite easy to imagine the other doesn't exist but actually they're both very common.
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#63There is no so much "waste" left from sugar cane.
The bagasse is already used as free fuel to boil cane juice.
Only places where electricity, or natural gas is really, really cheap have surplus bagasse.
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#64There is no so much "waste" left from sugar cane. The bagasse is already used as free fuel to boil cane juice. Only places where electricity, or natural gas is really, really cheap have surplus bagasse.
[deleted]
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#65Currently purchasing a full plastics thermoforming line. Not a chemist, but AFAIK current market available 'biostarch polymers' (AFAIK always PLA; which may be marketed as made from corn, sugar cane, etc.) are actually extremely environmentally unfriendly because of the massive embodied energy required to create the industry-ready polymer from the bio-waste material. Their single benefit is nominal biodegradability.…
That's surprising, I'd have assumed there's a bunch of embodied energy in clay pottery too.
I'd certainly have felt more guilty throwing away a single use pottery cup than one made of paper. It's frustrating how counter intuitive a lot of environmental issues are.
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#66Currently purchasing a full plastics thermoforming line. Not a chemist, but AFAIK current market available 'biostarch polymers' (AFAIK always PLA; which may be marketed as made from corn, sugar cane, etc.) are actually extremely environmentally unfriendly because of the massive embodied energy required to create the industry-ready polymer from the bio-waste material. Their single benefit is nominal biodegradability.…
It won't necessarily take a technology shift. Single-use containers could also be legislated against. And the reverse supply chains to get containers back to producers put in place.
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#67> They also found that when they made a cup out of the stuff and filled it with water heated almost to boiling point, the cup remained intact for more than two hours. Though this is not as long as a plastic cup would last (it would survive indefinitely) it is long enough for all practical purposes. Err, no. A disposable cup that leaks after 2 hours is a horrible product. Disposable cups are at their most useful in th…
Should cars have a coffee tank? Imagine pouring coffee at a stop just like petrol and have dispenser somewhere near driving seat with a mouthpiece.
I think a reusable coffee cup would be a much simpler solution.
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#68I remember as a kid in the 90s there was coffee mugs made of potato starch. It was said you could even eat the mug itself if you wanted to. Wonder what happened to those?
KFC trialled an edible cup in 2015 here in the UK. I don't think it took off, more of a gimmick in this form but quite an interesting experiment.
https://metro.co.uk/2015/02/25/kfc-unveils-the-uks-first-edi...
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#69This would be great for coffee chains. Some people think that when you bring you own cup to Starbucks, it'll save a paper cup. This is actually not true. The barista has to use pour the coffee to a new cup and then they'll pour in on yours.
This is definitely not true for most coffee chains in the UK (I haven't actually been to starbucks recently). I've watched them make the coffee straight into my cup.
Re: Better disposable coffee cups can be made with waste from sugar cane
#70Disposable items should be one of our most wanted enemies. What about reusable cups like mugs? You should then be expected to BYOC everywhere. Yes that would mean a lot of education and changes of mentallities and that's not going to happen anytime soon unless we pass laws for that kind of thing. And we totally should, IMHO. (edit: removed the part in which I stated that burning bagasse is clean energy as I want the…
Observation from Germany: A couple of years ago I wouldn't bring my own cup, because I was uncomfortable with having conversations about it. This has changed, because it's now prevalent enough that I'd consider it "not unusual" to have my own cup. Also plenty of places now offer small discounts. I'm not doing it for the discounts, but that of course adds to the normalization. (Also: Covid makes things more complicate…
I don't think reusable cups are an isuse with covid. After all it's your cup. And the baristas will have to touch disposable one too. So long as you wash it I guess.