Wednesday, 16 September 2009 posted by Toby Daniels
Why we don’t switch to reusable
“Dear readers, if you don’t drink from a reusable cup, what’s stopping you from making the switch?”
This question was asked of Planet Green’s reader’s in this post. In the piece, they make some compelling arguments as to why consumers should consider switching to reusable coffee cups:
“Take all the people who read this magazine, then persuade them to sip their morning coffee from a travel mug for one week. Result: Enough trees to fill two football fields will be spared the ax. Can’t commit to a week? Switching to reusable cups for just one day will save as much energy as using 1,000 gallons of gasoline.”
But regardless of how compelling these arguments are, consumers are not switching, at least not in large numbers.
We’d like to pose another question. Why?
We feel that one possible answer to this question is that it is simply not convenient.
One of the problems reusable cups is that they do not fit within a consumers existing routine. If they’re commuting to work by car or public transport, or they’re rushing between meetings, a bulky mug, that requires cleaning, is not an attractive option, regardless of their desires to be eco-friendly.
While this is not excusable, it is understandable. Eco-options, must be both sustainable and convenient, otherwise they will only ever appeal to the committed few.
Posted in: Inspiration | Tagged: convenience, cups, eco-friendly, mugs, planetgreen, reusable | 5 Comments
5 Comments to “Why we don’t switch to reusable”
Just bought myself a reusable cup recently to test if it’s really that inconvenient. It’s not but in 4 of 5 times I simply forget to take it cause I am too well trained or buying a coffee is a too spontaneous act to consider it before it happens. And truely I don’t want to walk around all the time with a reusable coffee cup since I am not that addicted at all (2-3 cups during the early day).
It’s a great observation bunterberg. Personally I think of convenience as ‘ease of use’. If you forget it, for whatever reason, then it cannot be described as easy to use. If however, the cup was as important to you as your mobile phone, or keys; or as cool, iconic and sexy as say your favorite baseball cap, then the likelihood of you forgetting it would probably reduce. The real problem is that the alternative to the reusable cup, the paper cup, is the epitome of convenience, e.g. use it once and throw it away! We have to find a way to blend all three elements: 1. Ease of use, 2. Cool, sexy and iconic and 3. Sustainable
why I don’t use reusable cups:
1. have not found one that is easy to clean.
2. don’t want to drink out of plastic or aluminum.
3. stainless steel and titanium if double-walled is ok, but can’t find one I can wash easily (i.e. fit my hand in) AND fit in my car’s coffee holder AND won’t slosh crazily when I drive.
the paper cups don’t spill in my car (or at least not much), are easy to drink from, don’t need cleaning and fits just fine in cup holders.
emulate all these (sans the no cleaning part) with a reusable and i will pay $100 for it.
I’m not 100% sure that it is better to use reusable vs. disposable. I used to be adamant about using reusable mugs, but now I’m not sure. Here are a few reasons to why I think it might be collectively worse.
1. many reusable mugs are plastic or metal. simply, mining is very destructive and energy intensive. and for plastics, many have harmful chemicals to humans and take hundreds of years to break down. Even though paper cups go to the landfill, it would seem that they would break down much faster and require less energy.
2. and what about the water to wash the reusable mugs… seems like it would take much more water to repeatedly wash then what it takes to make the deposable…. maybe not?
Thoughts?
Any ideas on how many disposables you could make with the energy to make one average reusable? and what is the life cycle of the reusable…?
I agree with Levi, it would be interesting to see the resource intensity of re-usable cups vs. paper alternative. Just want to make sure a cure isn’t worse than the disease. McDonalds’ had this issue when considering paper vs. plastic packaging.
Any insights into environmental intensity would be most useful. Typically cost is a first proxy for energy or environmental impact as cost. This may also help to understand other constraints. ie. reuasable cup needs to be used X times for it to be effective.