Over 50% of Americans over 18 years of age drink coffee every day. This represents over 150 million daily drinkers. It means that Americans consume 400 million cups of coffee per day or equivalent to 146 billion cups of coffee per year, making the United States the leading consumer of coffee in the world. Although more coffee companies are going green and serve their products in biodegradable cups, those are all disposable containers. The resources required to make those cups are considerable-the environmental consequences can be quite staggering. |
Americans throw away about 25 billion Styrofoam coffee cups every year, and 2.5 million plastic beverage bottles every hour. Most of these materials do not biodegrade. The plastic resin applied over most paper cups makes them nearly impossible to biodegrade. Styrofoam never degrades completely.
These disposable containers make up 18% of America’s garbage, and beverage cups made of virgin paper or Styrofoam make up a large chunk of that waste.
It means if you buy just one cup of coffee or tea in a disposable cup every day, you’ll end up creating about 23 lbs of waste in one year. That is a lot!!
How the Cups are made
Styrofoam cups are made from the material called polystyrene, a type of plastic that is used in many products, including LEGOs, bike helmets and other hard plastics. Like other plastics, Styrofoam is created from modified petroleum.
On the other hand, paper cups are also usually not made from all-natural materials. Most paper cups for hot beverages are coated in polyethylene to increase their durability and water resistance. However, it also prevents the cups from being recycled.
Starbucks, America’s favorite coffee shop, now makes its disposable cups with 10% recycled content. They won’t use a higher percentage because the recycled cups they’ve tried in the past leaked or failed and customers complained.
There is a new type of biodegradable and compostable paper cups available, but they are a bit more expensive, relatively resource intensive to produce and have not yet been widely adopted across the country.
The fact is, regardless what they’re made of, most disposable beverage cups end up in landfills. So 500 years from now, the polystyrene cup you toss out today will still exist either in a landfill or somewhere in our environment.
Environmental Dangers
When we talk about the problem of people throwing away coffee cups, the question is why it’s a problem. People might say it’s a problem only if the coffee cups are not good to recycle or when the production methods cause the actual environmental effect. It’s true that manufacturing reusable cups creates a bigger initial environmental impact than paper cups. However, that impact lessens over times as the reusable cup is reused. Each reusable cup has a magic number of uses at which point it becomes more environmentally friendly than a paper cup. Thus, indeed, there are environmental dangers associated with Styrofoam and paper cups. Paper cups endanger thousands, or even million, of trees which are cut down to make paper products. |  |
According to a study conducted by Starbucks and the Alliance for the Environmental Innovation (April 2000), each paper cup manufactured is responsible for 0.24 lbs of CO2 emissions. Considering the vast number of cups produced each year, this is a starting figure. Styrofoam cups have their own dangers as well. Styrofoam cannot be completely recycled. Most of the Styrofoam disposed of today will still be present in landfills 500 years from now.
Health Dangers
Paper and Styrofoam cups not only affect the environment, but also our health. According to Rodale, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, has labeled polystyrene a “probable carcinogen.”
And according to a study published in Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal, when Styrofoam is heated, the chemicals can leach out of the Styrofoam and into the hot food. Since most paper cups are coated in a petroleum resin, this chemical can also leach into the hot beverages which will eventually affect our health.
Alternatives
There are several viable alternatives to using Styrofoam or paper cups. The first option is to take a reusable cup with you. Even if this cup is made from plastic, you still avoid placing the 23 lbs of waste into a landfill that you would if you used a paper or Styrofoam cup each day. According to the United Nations University, bio-plastics made from sugar and corns are currently in production to replace some of the petroleum products used today.
Carry Your Own Cup
 These cool Starbucks tumblers are made with 20%post-consumer recycled material. (Photo/Starbucks Coffee Company) | EAA campaigns “Save a Cup, Save the Earth” to encourage people to switch over to reusable tumblers. Considering most reusable mugs, tumblers are designed to be used at least 3,000 times, the positive eco impact of a reusable tumbler can be enormous. More cafes are working to cut energy consumption and expand recycling and composting programs. Many offer discounts if you bring your own cup, and offer a wide range of stylish, insulated, leak-resistant reusable tumblers you can personalize and tote around. To assure you always have a reusable mug or a tumbler when you need caffeine fix, you can always keep a few extras on hand: one at home, one at the office, one in your car or in your bag, etc. The daily impact of reusable beverage holders may seem small, but it adds up quickly. And more and more people are joining in this growing movement towards reducing coffee cup waste. If we can all get more friends, family and responsible organizations involved… the reusable revolution will grow, and our Mother Earth will get a much-needed coffee cup break. Please contact us for more information on our campaign at info@environmentaa.org |
