The Disposable Coffee Cup Effect - #StopAndSwap
Half a trillion disposable cups are manufactured annually around the world; that's over 70 disposable cups for every person on the planet. Many single use cups are technically recyclable, something that some coffee companies actively promote on their packaging. However, disposable paper cups contain 5% polyurethane plastic, making composting and recycling of disposable cups a complicated process. This means cups cannot be recycled at standard recycling plants, and must instead be taken to special facilities – only three of which exist in the UK.
10 Alarming Facts about Single Use Cups*:
In the UK we use 7 million disposable coffee cups every day – that’s 2.5 billion every year.
Half of all coffees and hot drinks are sold in disposable cups. 2.5 billion coffee cups are used and thrown away each year in the UK - enough to stretch around the world roughly five and a half times.
Less than 1 in 400 - just 0.25% of disposable coffee cups are recycled.
Half a million cups are littered every day
While plastic is a major concern, the paper component of coffee cups is not without its environmental harms either. Very little recycled paper is used to make disposable cups due to health risk concerns. This means that trees must be felled to produce a product that only ends up being used for the length of time it takes to drink a latte (less than 10 mins). Add to this the carbon footprint of coffee cup manufacturing and distribution for these single-use items, and it is clear that disposable coffee cups in their entirety have a major impact on the environment.
4 billion trees, or 35% of the total trees chopped down, are used in paper industries
1 tonne of paper consumes 98 tonnes of resources in manufacture.
Globally, we consume nearly 300 million tonnes of paper each year; most made from virgin pulp.
70% of the world’s paper comes from diminishing forests, not from plantations or recycling
Consumer waste has increased more than tenfold over the 20th century, from 40kg to 560kg of waste per person, per year.
*Data from https://www.independent.co.uk & https://www.ecoffeecup.co.za
Environmentally Friendly Alternatives to Disposable Coffee Cups
Wanting to ditch the disposable coffee cups? Here are a few ideas to get you started. Although
some of these sustainable alternatives are a bit more expensive they will save you
money in the long run and it takes time to learn a new habit, but just think about how you will be helping the environment!
Reusable cups
There are an array of reusable cups on the market now and ones that are collapsible and can easily fit in you handbag or make a habit of always having one in your car.
Make a pledge
If you have forgotten your reusable coffee cup, then forgo your cuppa, make a pledge to not be part of the problem
Sit in
Stop rushing around and multi-tasking & instead swap your mindset to taking some mindful time to sit down in your favourite coffee shop and really enjoy your coffee!