NOURISH | enviro
REUSABLE CUPS With our growing appetite for coffee we have been forced to consider the impact of our daily habit. New Zealand’s obsession with coffee has us ranked as the 13th highest consumers of coffee in the world, surpassing the US and Australia. Many of us insist on drinking Fairtrade sustainably grown coffee with organic milk yet the Achilles heel for sustainable coffee is the takeaway cup it is more likely to come in. In New Zealand we use more than 200 million disposable cups every year, according to foodservice packaging company Huhtamaki. Environmentalist Tim Silverwood says disposable cups will probably outlast the drinker’s time on Earth.
Nick Fry developed the reusable cup after giving his coffee roastery and cafe business an environmental audit. Some serious persistence and a lot of tinkering to get the cups just right resulted in an award-winning product manufactured here in New Zealand. With not only an understanding of the coffee business and cafes as well as the issues around takeaway cups, the team at IdealCup are keen to encourage cafes to develop programmes around rewarding customers for using reusable cups, or better still charging more for those using takeaway cups. The theory of disincentivising consumers is backed up by a study from Cardiff University that points out “the plastic bag charge in England had been so successful that it showed a charge on coffee cups could work too”.
This is why an international coalition of NGOs says, “The billions of disposable coffee cups thrown away each year globally should be replaced with reusable ones because they are a waste of resources and harm forests.”
SOMEONE WHO CONSUMES FIVE TAKEAWAY COFFEES A WEEK PRODUCES 14KG OF WASTE A YEAR.
The award winning IdealCup is New Zealand's first reusable, ‘barista grade’ takeaway cup, better still it is designed and manufactured in New Zealand. When it finally comes to the end of its useful life it can be put out with your household recycling.
When it comes to disposable containers, no product gets as much flak as the plastic water bottle. Criticised for its contents (which is usually freely available from a tap) as well as for its packaging, these portable bottles can cause quite a stir! Plastic bottles are an environmental nightmare at every point of their existence, from the amount of crude oil they require to make through to the litter they create.
producing bottled water (including all stages from manufacturing the plastic to chilling the bottles for use) takes approximately 2000 times the energy required to produce tap water. In New Zealand, where the water from our taps is some of the best in the world, we have no excuse to say no to bottled water! The options for usable water bottles are vast and readily available.
FOR EVERY SIX PLASTIC BOTTLES BOUGHT, IT IS ESTIMATED ONLY ONE IS RECYCLED SO FIVE ARE THROWN AWAY TO EVENTUALLY END UP IN LANDFILLS, OR THE OCEAN. According to National Geographic, if we take into consideration the energy required to manufacture, transport and dispose of plastic water bottles in the United States, between 15–17 million barrels of oil (enough to fuel more than 100,000 cars for an entire year) are used each year in order to meet consumer demands. To put this into perspective, the Pacific Institute in California says that
The problem with takeaway coffee cups is that many people believe, because they are often made from paper, they are compostable, but as they are lined with polyethylene plastic this is not the case. This plastic layer stops the cup leaking or going soggy but also means they can’t be recycled in New Zealand. Nearly all, therefore, end up in landfill.
Even cups marketed as compostable pose issues. For a cup to be genuinely compostable it has to get to a composting facility. Paul Evans from waste industry body WasteMINZ explains the challenges. “Most things can be recycled in theory,” he says. “But ultimately it comes down to whether they are economically viable to recycle and if infrastructure is available in the specific region.”
WATER BOTTLES
COULD STRAWS BE THE LAST STRAW? It’s true, IdealCups are made from plastic, but if, like me, you have dropped and smashed three glass reusable cups in as many months, the fact IdealCups bounce is an added bonus! The BPA free, microwave and dishwasher safe cups are also loved by baristas as they fit perfectly under their coffee machine. They don’t develop a smell, stain or taint! Stephanie Fry from IdealCups also points out that “by keeping our production local and using sustainable products for manufacturing, we minimise our carbon footprint, offer opportunities for local businesses and keep skills on shore”.
NOURISH MAGAZINE
These seemingly innocuous objects contribute a huge amount of plastic pollution while providing a completely unnecessary job. In the U.S. they use 500 million straws a day! That is enough straw waste to wrap the circumference of the earth 2.5 times or to fill Yankee Stadium over nine times in a year! Now imagine that magnified by global consumption! If you can make one change, refuse the straw. www.plasticfreejuly.org
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