Environmental damage caused by paper cups in US and Australia each year.

Around 1 billion cups of takeaway coffee are produced in Australia each year. This equates to 7 million kg of solid waste in Australian landfills per year.

The U.S. consumes 16 billion cups annually, contributing 122 million kg of solid waste each year. Storing solid waste requires large land mass, and is unable to biodegrade (or compost) and breakdown into natural, non-synthetic chemicals to feed back into the earth for regrowth. As such, solid waste is often burnt in large furnaces, emitting greenhouse gases, methane, and other toxic substances into the Earth’s atmosphere. Reducing solid waste in landfills is thus as essential as reuse in creating a sustainable environment.

The great pacific garbage patch estimated to be twice the size of the continental U.S. It is estimated that 80% of the garbage comes from land-based sources such as the coffee cup and its lid.

The cost to local councils of managing paper cup waste.

Waste disposal (placing waste into garbage streams such as recyclable and non-recyclable) typically only represents 10% of the total cost of producing waste when ‘hidden’ costs are included. Producing waste involves ‘hidden’ costs to businesses and to local councils managing final waste disposal. These include:

• The Cost of raw material written off as waste
• Making waste
• Waste treatment cost
• Staff time on unproductive waste management work
• Storage and clean-up costs.

We need to focus on SOURCES of waste, not only the disposal of it. Separation and sorting require a vast amount of resources and education, and come at an ever increasing cost to councils and eventually residents, who ultimately bear the cost of managing landfill waste. These hidden costs are estimated to come at a 300% to councils for waste management.

Resources consumed in making paper cups each year.

An average takeaway coffee cup, including the cup and lid, consumes 50L of water in its complete production. By bringing a reusable coffee cup, you save the water used daily in producing takeaway cups, not to mention the oil and other resources used in transporting those cups to cafés each morning, each day around the world. That is an impact worth making.

Harmful impact of oil based solutions, including plastic-based products.

While the issue of Peak Oil is still being debated, there is nonetheless a general agreement that Oil, when consumed by the world at current levels, is highly destructive towards the environment. Not to mention the socio-political effects of our world’s hunger for oil, where 70% of the world’s poor live in resource rich countries, where Nigeria is the world’s 3rd largest oil producer, yet the nation is plagued by poverty, ethnic violence and corruption under a military dictatorship. This is despite the fact that Nigeria exports roughly 2 billion barrels of oil per day, translating roughly to 120 million U.S. dollars. This is only one example of the broader impacts of the world’s reliance on oil. However, developments in renewable energy (such as solar wind farms) don’t seem translate into any visible reductions in oil consumption yet, with U.S demand for oil projected to increase by nearly 50% by 2025 (Hydrogen Posture Plan, U.S. DOE, February 2004). All plastic based goods, such as traditional flasks and polypropylene cups, although reusable, are made of oil and also contribute to the problems raised by oil consumption in the many aspects of modern living.

Oil is arguably used at every stage of the coffee cup lifecycle, from its use in transporting paper, the operation of machines and the lining used to keep the paper cup safe for hot liquids. Imagine the impact of the carbon and other harmful chemicals emitted by oil combustion, repeating every day of the year, with each new batch of paper cups created for cafés everywhere. This would suggest that even a small gesture such as reusing a coffee cup, the positive effects (reduction in the use of oil for coffee cups, reduction in creation of paper) can be monumental when spread over the course of months or years.

Amount of coffee consumed by the average Australian and US citizen (in paper cup each year)

Australian coffee consumption per capita has doubled over the last 30 years in Australia, from 1.2 to 2.4kg per capita in 98/99. This represents a 65% increase over the last 10 years. This is equivalent to 1 billion cups per year (ref http://www.acta.org.au/article.php?a=3).

It is estimated that Australia alone disposes of approximately 1 billion coffee cups annually. This involves, and is equivalent to 6 million trees, generating over 5,500 tonnes of landfill every year. This equates to either of the following:

• Enough energy to power 3,400 homes
• Enough water to fill 380 Olympic swimming pools

(References: BIS shrapnel report, KeepCup and papercalculator.org).

Most paper cups aren’t biodegradable.

Many coffee lovers are unaware that the seemingly harmless paper cup is often not recyclable (despite being known as a ‘paper’ cup) and causes significant, and unnecessary, environmental damage in its end-to-end production cycle.

Most paper cups are lined with polyethylene coating to prevent hot liquids from melting the cup, they are also sprayed with toxic dyes, as when a logo is printed on the cup. This makes them unable to fit into recycling waste streams, impairing the cups from being recyclable biodegradable, landing them into garbage tips as solid waste.

Although ‘recycled’ paper based cups are available in some cafés, they present problems of their own, despite not being as harmful as traditional paper cups. In Australian CBD’s (central business districts), more than 80% of coffee cups are consumed in the workplace. Many offices do not have effective methods of filtering recyclable and non-recyclable waste, with any employees simply dumping their coffee cups into the nearest bin. It is estimated that 25% of waste ends up in landfills simply because of ineffective waste disposal practices. Reuse can be seen as the best strategy to stop unnecessary burden on our landfills.

Each paper cup emits carbon in production, total consumption has a huge impact globally.

Each paper cup accounts for approximately 0.11 kg of CO2. In Australia, this is equivalent to 110,000 tonnes of carbon per year emitted directly from paper cups. This is equivalent to the carbon emissions of a large woodchip mill in NSW (factory). – Eden Woodchip Mill

The energy used in creating takeaway coffee cups is equivalent to:

In America, 16 billion cups are disposed annually. This results in either of the following:

• Over 1 million tonnes of wood (6.9 million trees)
• Enough energy to power 58,000 homes
• Enough water to fill 6,350 Olympic swimming pools
• 122 million kilograms of solid waste

The 1 billion paper cups Australians dispose of results in either of the following:

• Over 60,000 tonnes of wood (1/2 million trees)
• Enough energy to power 3,400 homes
• Enough water to fill 380 Olympic Swimming pools
• 7 million kilograms of solid waste

This is a staggering burden for our planet to take on, considering that in the last 50 years alone, the Earth has been more radically changed than by all previous generations of humanity.

Note: These figures are conservatively based on 50 cups of coffee (among coffee drinkers) consumed per person, roughly 1 per week.