Environmental Impact Of Take Away Coffee Cups And Solutions

Scope

Discuss about the Take Away Coffee Cups for Environmentalist.

Coffee Cup is generally lined with polythene to make them waterproof.  However, this type of cup cannot be recycled due to its plastic lining.  It takes 30 years to break down the plastic lining and 100 years to break down the cup completely. This is mainly considered as the plastic pollution [1].   The Environmentalists are deliberately working in this issue for a long time.  

Scope

Environmentalist are very serious and working on  this problem  and repeatedly  telling everybody to use coffee cups  which are biodegradable, otherwise the whole world will be  filled with  pollution.  In Australia   people are acquainted with different flavours of coffee. Thus, this report will be beneficial to  make the people conscious about this problem.

The Coffee Alchemy in Sydney, Single Origin Roasters in Sydney, The Purple Moose in Sydney  and others are the coffee shops where thousands people comes  to have coffee and other food.  If these places are properly surveyed then one can find that what amount of coffee cups is disposed. The Environmental Paper Network and NGOs from   28 countries are working in this issue [2].  There were 40 environmentalists in the Environment Paper Network who worked for this issue. Thus, information regarding this topic can also be obtained by knowing the works of this topic. This group also formulated its ‘cupifesto’ which was meant to restrict the use of disposal plastic cups. The groups including Greenpeace, WWF and Global Witness billions also fights for this issue and they launched programmes annually to not use those cups . This is very harmful  for the health of the people, forests and the global climate.

A group named Tim Silverhood of  Take 3 which campaigns against the reduction of the plastic pollution opines that many coffee cups and lids  pollutes the beaches, waterways and parks and streets. According to the keep Australia beautiful the plastic coffee cups and takeaway food containers are 23% of the litter wastes in North-South Wales. Plastic and polystyrene are fragmented down into small pieces in marine ecosystems and are absorbed by birds, fish and other creatures, which sometimes result into intensive pollution in the city [4].  It is revealed in the World Economic Forum that by 2050 the world will have more plastics than the fish.   It is known that 60,000 kilograms of plastic waste from coffee cups is dumped each year in Australia.  The impact of the plastic coffee cups is immense because it takes one plastic coffee cup to break in 50 years.  According to Tim Silverwood that biodegradable cups are not produced in uniform chemical compositions and many industries, do not produce it.  Thus for the reason many people are unaware of this fact. It can be said that here are restricted recycling services available for polystyrene cups (styrofoam). It sometimes does not fill the land   but it breaks apart and becomes a pollutant that can be ingested by marine life and other creatures.   It has been known from specific sources that more than 70 cities in the US have bans on polystyrene they are: Washington DC, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Oakland, Portland, Albany and Seattle.  This is because they become threat to the marine biosystem. The environmentalists in Australia are recommending for the banning of the polystyrene cups. In some places the polystyrene bags are recycled.  It has been estimated that one disposable cup contains only five percent of the raw materials. Bleached materials are the elements used for the production of the coffee.   The whole process of manufacturing the plastic coffee cups comprises of harvesting the trees, pulping, washing and processing the material, all of which require large amounts of water and energy.  A huge amount of energy is used to make plastic coffee cups for example 98 tonnes of energy are used to make one tone of coffee cup.   

Methodology

The use of plastic coffee cup is much harmful for the female health [7].  Polythene bags or plastic cups available in markets are re-cycled only with the help of a poisonous chemical-Bisphenol-A [8]. According to various tests conducted so far, this compound has been proved cancerous. Apart from Bisphenol-A, other chemicals that are used in giving colour to plastics are also toxic [9]. Whether it is keeping hot tea or a cold item in a plastic cup, both are equally harmful and the toxic chemicals get mixed with them [10].

The first and foremost step to reduce   the problem of plastic cup is using reusable coffee cups. According to the KeepCup website, if one coffee shop uses recyclable coffee cups for a year, and not use the disposable paper coffee cups, then there will be 36-47 % of less greenhouse gas emissions, 64-85 % less use of water and 91-92% curtailment in landfill. A study from the University of Victoria in Canada  reveals that the reusable coffee cups breaks even with the paper cup after it is used for 17 times and a ceramic cup  even after it is used after 39 times.

Some coffee cups are made from the wax-coated paper as milk cartons, which is quite different from the plastic coffee cups.  However, many environmentalists have recommended that these types of cups are recyclable [5]. New South Wales will launch a container deposit scheme in July 2017 to lessen the use of the plastic coffee cups. The Northern Territory and South Australia were already used this type of coffee cups.   The use of container deposit scheme will curtail the utilization of the plastics [3].

Some companies are also using reusable coffee cups  in order to prohibit the use of plastic coffee cups. This also makes the people aware of the disadvantages of the reusable coffee cups.  One of these companies is Jocco reusable coffee cups. They not only produce coffee cups but they also produce teacups.  They mainly produce thermal sleeves, splash proof and nose- dome lid.  They also provide cups to the Barista and it is one of the food and coffee shop which delivers reusable coffee cups.

Conclusion

However, the environmentalists try hard to make understand about the ill effects of the plastic disposable cups but the mass is not able to overcome their social norms.  This is also one of the social causes for which the plastic pollution is prevalent everywhere. Plastic pollution is not only linked to only coffee cups but it is also related to plastic bags.  Plastic bags are utilized for shopping, daily marketing and other daily necessities.  The use of plastic bag has been reduced to an extent   when there is reintroduction of the jute bags and the paper bags.  Plastic pollution is part of a global warming because all these factors leads to the ozone depletion and melting of the glacier.  This will alter the temperature of all the countries of the world.  Thus for this reason there are problems which occurs due to the plastic pollution.  Hence for this reason the environmentalist   gives so much emphasis on the reduction in the use of plastic  and has instructed to use the reusable coffee cups or the take away coffee cups rather than using  the  plastic cups for coffee.

Reference

 [1]L. them, "Are takeaway coffee cups recyclable?", CHOICE, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.choice.com.au/food-and-drink/drinks/tea-and-coffee/articles/are-takeaway-coffee-cups-recyclable#problems. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017].

 [2]"Takeaway coffee cups piling up in landfill", ABC News, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-03/takeaway-coffee-cups-piling-up-in-landfill/7136926. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017].

[3]2017. [Online]. Available: https://henewdaily.com.au/news/national/2016/02/03/takeaway-coffee-cups-piling-landfill/. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017].

[4]"Biodegradable Takeaway Coffee Cups & Lids | Environmental Enterprises", Biodegradable Food Packaging Supplies Australia | Environmental Enterprises, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://environmentalenterprises.com.au/shop/take-away-coffee-cups/. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017].

[5]"Global shot at a greener coffee cup", Studyinaustralia.gov.au, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.studyinaustralia.gov.au/news/global-shot-at-a-greener-coffee-cup. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017].

 [6]"Why JOCO", JOCO Cups - Glass Reusable Coffee Cups, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://jococups.com/why-joco/. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017]. 

[7]M. Blake, M. Blake, J. Lurie, M. Blake, M. Blake, N. Liss-Schultz, M. Blake, A. Dejean, P. Caldwell and I. Oh, "That takeout coffee cup may be messing with your hormones", Mother Jones, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/11/tritan-bpa-free-plastic-styrofoam-estrogen. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017]

[8]"Drinking tea in plastic cup makes you vulnerable to cancer", Jagran Post, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://post.jagran.com/drinking-tea-in-plastic-cup-makes-you-vulnerable-to-cancer-1301388298. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017].

[9]D.cancer? "Does regularly drinking from a plastic container cause cancer?", Skeptics.stackexchange.com, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/2202/does-regularly-drinking-from-a-plastic-container-cause-cancer. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017].

[10]"5 Reasons To Kick Your Disposable Coffee Cup Habit For Good - Organic Authority", Organic Authority, 2017. [Online]. Available: https://www.organicauthority.com/sanctuary/5-reasons-to-kick-your-disposable-coffee-cup-habit-for-good.html. [Accessed: 23- May- 2017].