Disposable coffee cups

图片发自App

S(situation)

When you go into a coffee shop, would you prefer an in-house mug or a takeaway paper cup? Most people would like to have a paper cup instead of a mug, even if they just wanna sit for a while and take a rest.

Why? Maybe a tall paper cup with noticeable logo makes them feel cool and fashionable, I suppose. But do you know where these paper cups will go eventually? Unfortunately, landfills mostly.

C(conflict)

As most takeaway disposable coffee cups are not recyclable, because they are lined with plastic. That is a problem. We drink coffee with disposable paper cups and then throw them away after a short period of time.

That is not only a waste of resources but also bad to our environment. We all need to do something to deal with the situation.

Q(question)

People think coffee chain shops haven’t done everything they can, for example, setting enough recycling infrastructure within and outside stores.

Someone from Starbucks said, they’ve arranged collection facilities within stores, and they are also working with their charity fund to put some bins and collection points with clearly marked logo for coffee cups, because that is where a lot of paper cups will end up. In this way, sort paper coffee cups out for recycling.

It is a project rolling out recently and still in the process.

Besides, coffee shops are gonna charge extra money for using disposable coffee cups and give discounts to customers who bring their own reusable cups. It is a way to encourage people to remember to take a reusable cup and reduce the usage of one-time paper cup. While people’ s behavior need time and encouragement to form.

A(answer)

A British parliament member says all the measures taken by coffee shops are not enough, and people need a relatively forceable measure to do that, like a nudge, a gentle push, a good reason. She compared the situation of disposable coffee cups to plastic bags, in which the government introduced a law to enforce supermarkets to charge more for using plastic bags, not free any more.

But she said giant coffee chains are fighting tooth and nail, as they don’t want to do and worry it will affect their sales. For instance, why do they not introduce enabling recycled materials until recently? Cost might be the main obstruction factors.

Environmental friendly, that is only what they claim to be, and be responsible to society as well. When it truly affects their business, that is another story sometimes. In real world，business is always business.