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
- I challenge you to bring your own coffee cup to the local coffee house.
- I challenge you to ask the manager of that shop to use recyclable cups every time you visit.
- 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
Recent Comments