HAPPY EARTH DAY!
The paper cups are not good for the Earth, are they good for our health?
They are not recyclable, they have to go to the land field, ever wondered why? Because they are lined with plastic. The same plastic that most of us frawn upon and got rid of homes long ago as much as possible, in the form of toys, food containers and plastic bags.
So what about drinking and eating hot stuff from them? It is not something we think about while we grab the coffee or soup on the go.
However maybe we should as those things not only contribute to the waste and pollution and affect the global warming but also it is good to know what comes in contact with our hot beverages. I assume not as big problem if the substance is cold.
This is really concerning:
"In the US, over 50 billion paper cups are tossed in the trash and end up in a landfill every year. (Source: Int J Life Cycle Assessment). Our neighbors to the north throw out over 1.6 billion disposable coffee cups every year (Source: CBC), and in the U.K., 2.5 billion coffee cups a year get landfilled (Source: Independent).
Can’t paper cups be recycled like other paper products? In almost all communities, the answer is no. That’s because paper cups need a plastic lining to be waterproof, and that lining is polyethylene made from petroleum. Over 231,000 barrels of petroleum are needed to line the paper cups.
Lined with plastic, the paper cup is no longer as simple to recycle as office paper. Only 18 of the largest 100 U.S. cities accept coffee cups in their recycling programs. And only three paper recycling mills in the U.S. can process plastic-coated paper (Source: Stand.earth).
Sending our paper cups abroad for recycling is also not an option. In 2017, Asian recyclers began restricting the materials they accept, only importing paper that is clean and dry. In response, communities are limiting what items are allowed in the recycling bin (Source: OPB).
As a society we need to stop believing that paper cups are getting recycled, either here in the US or abroad.
https://www.worldcentric.com/notree/#:~:text=In%20almost%20all%20communities%2C%20the,is%20polyethylene%20made%20from%20petroleum.&text=Only%2018%20of%20the%20largest,cups%20in%20their%20recycling%20programs.
HAPPY EARTHDAY EVERYBODY!