Rethinking Your (disposable) Coffee Cup

I am sure like me many of you have visited shops or businesses and were scorned when you were served a beverage in a Styrofoam cup! But you will or may be surprised to know that at this point in time that the scorned Styrofoam cup is in fact the most environmentally friendly choice of disposable cup!

How can this be? Quite simply paper cups are not plain paper cups. In order to provide structure to the cup it is constructed of multiple layers of which there will be a layer of plastic or foil which is anything but bio-degradable. If you read the fine print of paper cup manufacturers they will say to check with your local council on whether recycling is available for these plastic or foil layers but the pragmatic truth is it is too hard to strip these layers and paper cups are really currently just not recyclable! [1]

Some manufacturers [1] have started to make paper cups with bio-film as opposed to foil or plastic. In these cases the paper cup is then full compostable or bio-degradable. That said, the commercial existence of these fully bio-degradable cups is next to non-existent but don’t let that stop you asking for one!
In addition, here are more facts on paper cups.

1. Paper production can cause almost twice as much CO2 emissions and energy consumption as creating plastic or styrofoam products [2]

2. Paper cups use more material by weight in order to achieve insulation properties as compared to styrofoam and plastic cups [2]. Eg. Starbucks used to serve its coffee in 2 paper cups (double cupping) and now has evolved this practice with its “insulation sleeve”. [3]

3. The paper cup consumes 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much electricity, and twice as much cooling water as the plastic cup [4]

4. The paper cup costs 2.5 times more than the plastic cup to produce [4]

The bottom line is the lifecycle costs of disposable cups, comparing paper vs styrofoam or plastic the conclusion is that styrofoam cups are the most environmentally friendly option. [5]

If you have to use disposable cups, then styrofoam is currently the better environmental choice. The best option is to use your own ceramic, steel or glass mug [6].

As always, reducing, reusing and conserving saves far more energy and reduces ecological impact then recycling, which is typically a very energy intensive process.