Drinkin’ Outta Cups

As most of you are probably aware, in addition to this blog Alyssa and I have created a Free Coffee Monday at Bagelz in the Emporium for customers who use travel mugs. The idea is based off using an incentive—free coffee— to encourage travel mug use, with the hope that the use of a travel mug will soon become a habit among Bagelz customers. Look here for some cool options!

We came up with this idea last semester when the two of us began noticing single-use bottles and cups strewn about the campus, in the hands of many of our peers and faculty, and in trash cans everywhere.

I think everyone knows that there are a lot of single-use products used on the URI campus, but we estimated that at Bagelz alone about 500 polystyrene (aka Styrofoam) cups are used everyday, and all of those end up either on campus grounds or in the Johnston landfill. Like the cigarette butts I mentioned in my last post, Styrofoam is not biodegradable. The difference is that, unlike the cigarette butts, Styrofoam is also resistant to other forms of decay—from water and light—so every single one of those cups lasts forever.

Very recently I received an email suggesting that Alyssa and I look into convincing Bagelz to stop using Styrofoam cups to serve their hot beverages. The reasoning? It’s awful for the environment. This person is correct.
Some argue that Styrofoam cups are, in fact, more eco-friendly than paper cups. And perhaps this side of the argument is not all wrong; paper cups do have their own failings. They take more energy/water to create, don’t retain heat/cold as well as Styrofoam, they require a cardboard sleeve to protect the holder’s hands, and because paper cups are typically lined with plastic on the inside they can take up to 20 years to biodegrade. And, probably the most influential factor? Paper cups cost more.

What this side of the argument forgets is that Styrofoam is made from petroleum—a non-sustainable resource—the production of which creates huge amounts of air pollution. Plus, during the actual making of the Styrofoam 57 other chemicals are released as by-products. More importantly this argument seems to ignore that Styrofoam can have serious health side effects—especially when used with hot beverages.

 

Styrene—the main building block of polystyrene or Styrofoam—can cause a slew of health problems from messing with our hormone levels leading to problems with the thyroid, menstrual cycles, and breast and prostate cancers, to problems with the make up of our blood, to issues with our nervous systems.  Basically the seemingly innocent and perfectly safe action of drinking coffee (unless you burn your mouth) is twisted into a dangerous, potentially life-threatening action when is done using a Styrofoam cup.

The paper cup, on the other hand, is hardly as ominous.

So while Alyssa and I may look into encouraging Bagelz to switch from Styrofoam to paper cups, what we really want to see, what are our real goal is, is to encourage the URI population to avoid both. To avoid causing harm to the self. To avoid causing harm to environment.  To avoid spending more money—Did I mention there’s free coffee on Monday at Bagelz with use of a travel mug??  And maybe a small part of it is to help out the owner of Bagelz, Nancy. She is a sweetheart, isn’t she?