For those of you who think “its a paper cup, it will decompose, its good for the environment”, I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but you couldn’t be further from the truth.
Most disposable coffee cups are made from cardboard, lined with a thin layer of plastic (polyethylene) tightly attached to the cup. This keeps the drink warm and prevents the cardboard from becoming soggy, however it also makes the cup non-recyclable and bad for compost. It takes about 20 years for such a cup to decompose leaving traces of nasties in the soil, bleaches and dyes are used to change the colour of the cup – not good for your compost. So with this in mind, a styrofoam cup is actually the greener option as opposed to a paper cup, BUT what would be even more amazing is to just use a reusable coffee cup altogether.
It does take more energy to initially produce a reusable cup, however if you’re considering buying a reusable coffee cup, it’ll only take about 15 to 17 coffees before it breaks even with a disposable cup, according to the KeepCup and IdealCup websites.
“An IdealCup lasts for a minimum of six years, during which time, the comparative use of disposable cups would add around six kilograms of plastic to landfill. That’s just over 52 IdealCups worth of plastic, for each person who uses disposable cups, every six years.”
Now that China has put a halt on receiving other countries recycling, Kim Renshaw, from Beyond the Bin, believes that hopefully this will lead to Government support and investment in private industry to develop solutions to recycle products within New Zealand.
If you’re wondering “but wouldn’t it just be easy to recycle the disposable cups?” or “but there are compostable cups, whats wrong with those?”, well recycling the current cups is near impossible. The current design means that the plastic lining cannot be detached from the cardboard, and there is usually also a petroleum based sealer on the outside of the cup, not to mention – how many people have you ACTUALLY seen look for a recycling bin to put their cup into as opposed to putting it into the closest rubbish bin?
As for compostable cups, this would be the ideal solution, however the demand for production of these has grown much faster than the commercial composting businesses can cope with. In New Zealand there are only 11 sites throughout the country that take large amounts of decomposable materials, and most did not accept the cups because they could not identify what cups were compostable and which were not. There are hopes that a certified logo will be created by the end of June, this will help to reduce confusion and also let coffee drinkers know how to correctly dispose of their cup.
If you want to read more about what it takes to create a paper cup that is destined for landfill after 10 minutes of use, you can read here. It is a very lengthy process that uses a lot of energy and resource consumption that I am sure will shock you.
Recommended cups:
- Klean Kanteen – Can be used for both cold or hot drinks, so would be more verstitle for day to day life. Made from stainless steel.
- Joco – Made from glass & silicone.
- Keep cup – Made from glass or polypropylene (can be recycled), with silicone band (non recyclable)/ cork band (compostable). They have a very detailed “Help” section on their website for materials list and production process.
- Frank Green – Made in Australia with polypropylene/stainless steel options.
- Ideal Cup – Made and owned in New Zealand, made from polypropylene.
*Please note there is also no current recycling system in place for silicone products*
With so many cafes and coffee shops having ‘bring your own cup’ schemes, and offering discounts, why wouldn’t you? Check out this search engine that finds ‘eco cup friendly’ cafes around New Zealand!
More exciting things happening in the industry!
Yikes!!