Wednesday
Mar162016
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Thinking, or not thinking, about coffee
Mar 16, 2016 Recycling ;)
Today's "stupidity signalling" story is the mainstream media's excitement over a report that we are throwing away three billion disposable coffee cups each year. It doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that disposable cups are disposed of on such a prodigious scale because they are made of very cheap, very abundant materials and need little energy along the way. Nor do they seem to have clocked that ceramic cups are much more expensive because they require huge amounts of energy to make.
Still, this nonsense does fill up their pages for them.
Reader Comments (107)
Coffee cups are the new plastic bags / bottled water / soda cans.
Here's a guardian story from 2009 about ceramic v disposable.
Despite the fact the research it refers to points to disposable paper cups possibly being more energy and resource efficient than ceramic the stories conclusion is that disposable paper cups are wasteful.
In fact a lot of the fuss in these articles is that many of the coffee-shop chains are misleading customers by claiming that the cups are recyclable when in fact they are not.
To get things into perspective, how much energy does it take to cultivate, harvest, transport, and process the coffee beans, to package the product, to drive to the supermarket to buy the coffee (along with other things of course), to make the coffee, then to wash-up and dry a ceramic coffee cup?
I have no idea but before getting excited about disposable coffee cups, I'd want to be assured that the disposable coffee cup was actually the dominating factor in the use of materials and energy.
Actually, Bish, I thought the most 'stupidity signalling' I've read today was from a letter in the DT describing how the Visit Scotland website seems to have air-brushed out wind-farms:
Seeing as you're from that neck of the woods it would be good to know if the scenes in the video are actually true to life, ie: there really are no wind-turbines present.Reusable and disposable cups: An energy-based evaluation
my bold
Re: Harry Passfield
If you are certain that they have airbrushed wind factories out then raise a complaint to the ASA. They might be forced to withdraw the advert and suffer the bad publicity from it.
As you say, it is all a complete load of nonsense and a complete waste of time. This country has far more pressing problems than worrying about disposing of disposable cups.
Don't you people reuse those cups for starting seedlings? What do you use for that?
TerryS: Perhaps I should have put 'air-brushed' in inverted commas - as I can't be sure that is the case. It's just seemed to me ironic that the video extols the virtues of Scotland's landscape when, afaik, it's pretty difficult to view it without a wind turbine spoiling the view.
How about the concept of a 'cup-for-life', after all it works for bags and it wouldn't be hard for everyone to carry around their own cup just in case they need a coffee.
(sorry the silliness gets to me)
Never mind keeping the National Grid stable and the lights on, I think that the efficient use of paper cups is such an important issue that the Energy Minister should issue a new decree to ensure that all 100% of paper/plastic cups are recycled by 2050.
A lot of re-cycling appears to me to take far more energy than simply dumping items in landfill, of which we have plenty in the UK. I'd be interested to know if any serious study has been carried out regarding the energy consumed in the home by washing items for recycling, by the vehicles which collect then, at the depots where they are sorted, transporting the different items to various locations for re-use and in re-using the materials compared with starting from basics. In addition, what is the cost of the manpower involved in doing this work?
No one ever seems to consider the overall cost from end to end, just statements like 'it saves energy to make bottles from re-cycled glass' with out counting the cost of collecting and sorting the glass.
gnome
"Don't you people reuse those cups for starting seedlings? What do you use for that?"
We use Royal Worcester for the Petunias and Crown Derby to bring on the Asparagus.
EP
"any serious study"
There probably has been, but no-one will publish it!
Wait until the Greens discover that the coffee that people drink in those cups actually ends up being excreted as toxic waste products. Think of all of the damage caused to the Earth by all of that waste (that could be prevented by simply banning the consumption of coffee).
Woodsy42 makes an interesting indirect point. I am curious, who actually receives the 5p from the sale of the plastic carrier bag? Presumably it's the supermarket, which, from my casual observations, seems to sell a considerable amount of plastic bags still! I can't say that I have seen a significant reduction in the number of carrier bags littering the streets, then again, I never really did see that many before the charge!
Like blunt scissors for children, it keeps them busy and distracted, and not playing with something more harmful.
Perhaps Andrea Loathsome would like a zero coffee society by 2080. I have heard terrible rumours that claim that coffee has (dare I say it) CARBON in it.........
Here's the case for polystyrene cups. It's an interesting comparison with paper cups which cost 2.5 times more.
http://www.rsc.org/Education/Teachers/Resources/Inspirational/resources/6.2.2.pdf
One comment yesterday — landfill is a form of recycling. It recycles land.
And incineration (which was the other 'naughty' mentioned) makes use of waste material to provide heat and power. What wasn't mentioned was that the end product is ash which has horticultural uses.
It never seems to occur to these idiots that we have been recycling for generations and their preferred methods (over-simplified, of course, because they can only ever see the down side to things they don't understand) are not the only ones nor necessarily the most useful or efficient.
"cups is not an important issue" - No its about the PRINCIPLE ...It is wrong to BE DECEPTIVE at any level in green issues.
The ironic bit : I believe that coffee workers are not white males..Therefore if you are a coffee drinker you are an EVIL EXPLOITER ...............#WhiteMansGuilt
Mike
I was thinking the same thing. You burn the cups and use the ash. It would be a matter of working out the turnaround rate for growing new trees though I'm sure there are other considerations.
This is a bit like the disposable nappy research whereby the right-on environmentally conscious parents are actually causing more environmental damage via the detergents used to wash re-usable nappies ending up in the water cycle. Or the research that showed a gas-guzzling Jeep was less environmentally damaging than a Prius thanks to all the rare metals mining and criss-crossing of the manufacture across the globe.
stewgreen: "I believe that coffee workers are not white males..Therefore if you are a coffee drinker you are an EVIL EXPLOITER"
... and a sexist, there aren't there any female workers or are there ?
... and an EMPLOYER because you provide work where there wouldn't be without you demanding coffee
'Woodsy42 makes an interesting indirect point. I am curious, who actually receives the 5p from the sale of the plastic carrier bag? '
The money goes to various charities which are chosen for us by the great and the good. When carrier bag policy was voted through the leaders of each of the main parties were millionaires!
'Woodsy42 makes an interesting indirect point. I am curious, who actually receives the 5p from the sale of the plastic carrier bag? '
The money goes to various charities which are chosen for us by the great and the good. When carrier bag policy was voted through the leaders of each of the main parties were millionaires!
Tony Blair, that great Socialist lawyer, being the greates millionaire of them all, especially with the Blair's property portfolio! DAISNAID, anyone?
Disposable coffee cups would be OK if they weren't just thrown out of car windows, together with crisp packets, KFC buckets, huge boxes which once contained burgers etc. The ultimate stupid throwaway is the aluminium can. If I had my way I'd put a 20p deposit on the things which would clear up a lot of very long-lasting rubbish.
Anyone disagreeing is welcome to come along to Spalding's Chair Hill. Bring a rubbish bag.
JF
Julian Flood
I would add water bottles to that list, due to the sparsity of fast food outlet in Limousin he main littering I see when cycling seems to be plastic bottles.
I used to collect aluminium cans for my local scout group, and sold them to the local scrap yard - a very worthwhile distraction when dog-walking. Now THAT is sensible recycling! (dog now dead, and we have an allotment, so no time for walking!)
SimonJ
The obvious greeny solution is hemp cups - optionally edible.
I think michael hart got closest to the real evil truth ^.^
This is all part of the grand plan, not of the green but of the rich and powerful from whatever source. The plan is to keep the plebs (er that's us) busy with non existent problems while they keep going to the bank with all the money (thank you George Carlin).
If we ban disposable cups, their very survival will be threatened, and they will become an endangered species. To prevent extinction, a tax can be levied on the extra costs of energy used to provide clean reusable cups, and this money can be used to provide employment, for more clueless idiots.
If polythene bags are so bad because they take hundreds of years to breakdown,, why do they disintegrate so quickly whilst being carried across a supermarket car park?
There's a hill in Spalding? :-)
Coffeycups,
More importantly:
They require huge amount of energy to take care of, collect, clean, dry and store if they were to be re-used many times.
Dave S, no, it's what the satnav says when I drive along the road between Rushford and Coney Weston. It pronounces it as spaldings CHAIR hill which always amuses me. (We are country dwellers and have to find our entertainment where we can.)
Plastic bottles as well, 20p on them.
JF
@Mar 16, 2016 at 9:40 AM | Unregistered CommenterHarry Passfield
There are certainly vast numbers of wind turbines in Scotland. I think it comes down to the question of where you point the camera. If you film at Tantallon Castle, say, you don't want to point your camera southwards, down the road, because the hills to the south are covered in the devil's windmills. If you point across the Forth, you're probably in danger of picking up the odd wind-farm in Fife, too, but it possibly won't require too much (wind-generated) electronic wizardry to make them blend into the background.
The thing is that your point is entirely right: if somebody is filming Scotland, with the aim of attracting tourists to its beautiful landscapes, while pointedly omitting some of the most prominent eyesores, that is both dishonest in itself and is, simultaneously, a tacit admission that wind-farms are a blight on the landscape.
Meanwhile, Nicola Sturgeon is planning to carpet-bomb Scotland with ever more turbines. I wonder if the film-makers were told they were working to a deadline.
I hate plastic and paper cups and will go to some trouble to get coffee to drink at a table inside a joint which will provide a china cup. I don't care much about comparitive environmental effects. Most of the concern here is promoted by those who wish only to produce an air of 'everyone doing their bit'. It's a false way to convince the public they are doing good when they really are ,making no difference.
The strategy is pointed out in the 'Warm Words' document produced by the IPPR years ago. Anyone who hasn't read it, should.
James:"a bit like the disposable nappy research... or gas-guzzling Jeep was less environmentally damaging than a Prius thanks to all the rare metals mining and criss-crossing of the manufacture across the globe."
The simplest way to tell whether one option requires more energy is to look at the price tag, because price and energy consumption are extremely closely related.
So, it's almost invariably true that if you do something because someone says its "Green" and not because of the price, then the only way you are being "green" is in the sense of gullible.
Another eco-panic press-release mindlessly parroted and pasted by all the mainstream media.
I don't know, but when I asked the local chip shop guy about the plastic bag inspector, he laughed bitterly.
"It's not a single inspector, it's always at least two".
Apparently they tally up bags in and bags out and the amount collected.
Now what you need to be curious about is how these inspectors are paid.
"It's not a single inspector, it's always at least two".
Clearly they need to "inspect" in pairs for protection, understandably I think!
If they required dogs to wash their own re-usable nappies (that's diapers for US readers), then their owners wouldn't need to buy non-branded plastic bags to hang dog-lead from trees in my local forest.
@kellydown
Plastic Bag Revenue Wardens? ... you are kidding? ... please....
At the risk of sowing inspiration ... it's got to be toilet paper next . (Has George Osborne sat down yet?)
Who employs them? (I know we do) - as in it's a national tax - is there an organ of central government enforcing this ?
The people who whinge about plastic bottles were obviously not born and brought up in the pre-plastic era when all bottles were glass. What would you prefer - litter of easily removable plastic or a load of broken glass?
Just think of all the well paid executives selling coffee as something special, because it comes from developing countries, employing the poor and needy, who would lose their jobs.
JamesG, is thinking on the right line though. Many food retailers get away with selling reconstituted food that looks and tastes like cardboard, so if this idea was extended to make reconstituted food that looks and functions like cups, it would help street vermin do something useful, and keep the urban environment clean.
wait till they calculate how much toilet paper we use....
Golf Charlie's latest post seems almost reasonable. Is he losing his touch, or have I now been immunized against him?
I think that they were referring to K-cups, used to brew one cup at a time.
Leo Smith, but they recycle loo paper don't they?
The best Green Blob ideas keep being recycled, no matter how many times they have been proved pointless and useless before. If only the Green Blob could be recycled into something useful, the lasting legacy might be favourable.
EP, 10:27am: Too right. Back in the 80's I was involved in a Council of Europe working group investigating the safety of food contact materials. I was amazed to find out that, at that time, there was no facility to recycle green glass anywhere in Europe. Clear and brown glass was, but green glass was crushed and shipped to Brazil for recycling.
BTW, used disposable cups, along with other used paper, card and plastics that we 'recycle' are not recycled into new cups or other food contact materials as the processes used to recycle them are not aggressive enough to remove any bacterial or fungal spores, or any potentially toxic compounds that may be present. They generally get turned into things like rubbish sacks, traffic cones and fibreboard.