Paper and cardboard make up over 40% of the solid waste
buried in North American landfills. Of that 40%, a disproportionate amount is
attributable to disposable coffee cups
The
word “paper” might suggest that the paper cup is easily recycled and that it is
not as bad as its plastic cousin. However, most paper cups are coated with a
plastic resin (i.e., polyethylene) for durability and convenience, therefore
making both their composting and recycling impossible and all
of those cups end up in landfills.
-
Green Global USA’s Coalition for Resource
Recovery estimates that if all paper cups were recycled, 645,000 tons of waste
would not end up in landfills.
- Did
you know Canada disposes of more coffee
cups per year than there are people in China, and that’s just mere 30 million people out of nearly 7 Billion
on the planet?
-
Coffee is the #2 traded
commodity in the World and the #1 is Crude Oil. Oil is everywhere, in our
cars, in our power plants, in pipelines, refineries, tankers, and sand. There’s
really only one use for coffee and 64% of Canadians say they drink it everyday,
averaging 2.8 cups, with 88% saying they drink it at least once per week. Our
individual acts, our morning routine, results in 2.25 Billion cups consumed
each year worldwide.
-
- Well for many, it’s in a
paper cup. In fact, Canada produces 1.6 Billion Paper Coffee Cups per year,
which takes 350,000 trees and 400 million gallons of water to produce. One
study found that the city of Toronto produces 1,000,000 coffee cups per day alone.
Not only do we consume the coffee, we consume all the materials and energy used
to make the disposable cups.
-
The average coffee cups is used
for 10 to 15 minutes, after which it spends around 500 years in a landfill.
Talkin` Trash
with UHN
It's time to rethink a little about our way we drink
the beloved coffee every day. You can start putting you mug with your lunch bag
to make sure that you will not forget it .So every time you want a coffee you
will not need to use a paper cup.
The Challenge and CO2 emissions
During 1 week we challenge you to use 5 less disposable coffee cups.
Doing this little change, you will reduce CO2 emission by 1.25 Ibs per week.
Do not be discouraged
thinking that your change will not make much difference. After all, you can
invite more people to participate of the sustainable challenges and they can
make the difference together with you.
Ps.: Based on an April 2000 Starbucks/Alliance for Environmental Innovation Joint Task Force report, the CO2 emission is about 0.25 Ibs per medium-sized coffee cup.. That includes both the CO2 released when fossil fuels are burned to create the energy needed to manufacture the paper in the coffee cup and then manufacture the coffee cup itself. It also includes the energy used to transpot the cups from the factory to the coffee shop.
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