The Great Coffee Cup Challenge

Here’s the coffee cup truth – our landfills are filling up with disposable coffee cups. According to the Sustainability Is Sexy website, Americans use approximately 16 billion disposable coffee cups per year. In 2006 alone, Starbucks used 2.3 billion coffee cups. Most cups including Starbucks current coffee cup design (as of 4/2009) only use a small percentage of recyclable material and are NOT recyclable themselves due to plastic content used to protect the cup from liquid leakage.

This quote from Sustainability Is Sexy really says it all; “In 2006, it is estimated that paper cups accounted for 252 million pounds of garbage resting in landfills.  Paper cup use in 2006 also accounted for 4 billion gallons of water wasted, 6.5 million trees cut down, and 4,884 billion BTU’s of energy used.”

When I found out these statistics I was blown away. Lots of people on the internet are complaining about it, but very few people are doing anything. Let’s DO SOMETHING!

If we can’t recycle them, why not reduce and reuse them?

The Great Coffee Cup Challenge

1. I challenge you to bring your own coffee cup to the local coffee house.
2. I challenge you to ask the manager of that shop to use recyclable cups every time you visit.
3. I challenge you to show my readers a creative way to reuse the coffee cups via video or photo.

Above is a video I made showing you what I do to reuse disposable coffee cups. I challenge you to make a difference by finding creative ways to reuse these cups. Send your videos, photos, and write-ups to blog@thecasualgardener.com and I will post your ideas and suggestions.

Let’s do something to make a difference together!

Shawna Coronado says Get Healthy! Get Green! Get Community! www.thecasualgardener.com or The Blogs - www.gardeningnude.com or http://thecasualgardener.blogspot.com

Comments

[greg]

There's also this thing called ordering "for here".

I know people insist on consuming their meals standing up in gas stations like they're on a pit stop for the Grand Prix. But honest -- using things like chairs or utensils and dinnerware that isn't meant for the birthday parties of four-year-olds is also worth consideration.

[Wizzy]

Ultimately though these cups will still end up in a landfill at some point in time. The best method is to not use them. I take my own coffee cup (travel mug) with me everywhere.

Making your own coffee is an economical idea of course but you usually can not get the same flavor as you can when they make the caramel macchiato. lol.

[Alena]

hi, I just referred to your post in my blog. Thanks for the info. I agree!!
www.iheartgreen.net
cheers, alena

[Anthony Howe]

If you have teenagers that aspire to be musicians, line the walls and ceiling of your basement or garage with used egg cartons or empty coffee cups to absorb the sound of them practising.

[maya]

the very few cups i get, i like to use to let my daughter play with - mix paint/crafting, play in the bath (for the plastic ones), etc.

[Shawna Coronado]

WOW! Thanks for all the fantastic comments - Can't wait to see videos and photos of all your creative ideas.

Keep'em coming!

Shawna

[Joe Lamp'l]

Way to go Shawna. How many billions of those cups could we keep out of the landfill if we could just find something else to do with them like you've demonstrated. My question is, when are they going to finally get to the point of making them recyclable???
Thanks for the video!
Joe

[Randy]

Shawna,

Recently I was glad to see one of my favorite slow food markets to have compostable cups for their iced coffee and other iced drinks. What really shocked me was these compostable cups had Coke advertising on them, somebody must be twisting their arms pretty hard. We always carry our own cups.

[Angie (Losing It and Loving It)]

Great video! I don't garden but those are some really neat tips. I also had no clue I could bring my own coffee cup to Starbucks (or other coffee shops). Thanks for the tip.

[DaveMurr]

I had no idea how many coffee cups we go through a year! Holy crap. Maybe that's why I drink tea ;) Thanks for the info, this is great!

[Cameron]

Great plan for those who use coffee houses. We make our coffee (and our sparkling water and sodas) at home on our own machines (a Jura Capresso for coffee and a Penguin for the water/sodas).

Cameron

[ndslotnick]

Great ideas - of course, your first suggestion to bring your own cup tops the reuse of paper cup suggestions and most coffeehouses will give you a discount when you do (10 cents each time at SBUX). Another, less know, fact is that if you buy your coffee beans at SBUX they also give a discount for bringing in your bag to be refilled (not all employees know this, though). I would like to see SBUX publicize it more. They did this years ago when all of their coffee was bagged in the store, then they started the vacuum packed bags. Now they are giving the bag discount again, but it is a little trickier since bagging in the store isn't the primary method anymore.

[daniel (food dryer home)]

I might also suggest the challenge: Make your own coffee. For the cost of a cup of coffee at a shop, you can buy a pound of ground coffee beans that will make coffee for weeks.