Does your office use styrofoam coffee cups?
This is a tough subject if your offices uses styrofoam, completely horrible for the environment cups and you feel helpless in making it change. I understand your grief.
Getting your coworkers to stop using styrofoam cups and bring in a coffee mug from home to use is like telling a smoker to quit smoking. No one’s going to change his or her habit until it becomes import then himself / herself. All I can really say is to change yourself and set a good example.
But while we’re talking about, here’s why using styrofoam cups is just so bad…
According to the environmental protection agency over 25 BILLION styrofoam cups are thrown away a year*. Yikes!
*Source: The throwaway generation: 25 billion Sytrofoam cups a year.
So the BIG problem is that no one is recycling the styrofoam cups. It’s technically possible to recycle them but finding plants that do it and getting your used cups there is the big problem. Also most people don’t wash out their cup before disposing it and a dirty cup causes more trouble for recycling plants. So these styrofoam cups just end up at the landfill and they don’t decomposs well. Check out this youtube video showing styrofoam getting recycled: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvHuX32_–g&feature=related
Using your mug has a downside that you’re using water, papertowels but overall is still the better option. As long as you’re using a mug you already own and not going out to buy a pretty new one.
Also - it’s WAY more energy efficient to put that mug in the dishwasher with a big load of other dishes - it saves water just like showers are better than baths.
While we’re on the topic of the office environment, check out this entry on the blog Microsoft Office where they discuss How far do you go to be green??
