Why not address the first issue with a service, and the second with an incentive?

For instance, coffee places already have the ability to produce boiling water en masse. Boiling water kills most germs. So, if people simply kept their mugs *reasonably* cleaned, coffee providers could just blast the cups with the water for a reasonable charge. And if your cup was clean already, no reason to do so.

To help with the cost of this, coffee providers could charge an extra $1. That would get people in the habit of washing their mugs to save the $1. In addition, this could be an incentive to use the travel mug. Simply keep the additional $1 charge for using a paper cup, and suddenly people will have great incentives to re-use cups, AND to keep them cleaned themselves.

Brushing your teeth, closing the fridge door — there are so many other little daily life activities which are simple habits. Using a cup is not a big deal. To me it’s a bit ridiculous to launch an idea-sharing, community-driven, open feedback site for a cup. So much work, press, and marketing to solve good old American laziness.

In the meantime, let’s add a $.50 or even $1 tax to all paper coffee cups. That money would be used to create composting programs. While paper cups are not recyclable, they can easily be composted and their lids recycled. Don’t like paying the tax, then buy a travel mug.

Or take a different approach and start including the true cost on goods we consume. Paper cups should be twice or 3 times the price if the companies producing them had to replace the water they use, and the trees cut down. Coffee shops would have to charge more for composting of the items they give away. Since we never pay for the true cost of anything, we have lots of environmental problems with our goods, not just coffee cups. I’m sure true cost of goods would definitely change the way we use things.

But a better coffee cup? Sure, great start. Somewhat misguided, but what can we really expect from us?

Cappuccino from a paper or metal cup tastes worse to me. Meanwhile Americans guzzle too much. 8 oz of coffee is plenty, even the “I am Not a Paper Cup” is too large for me. I just need a silicone protective lid for an Illy-sized cappuccino cup.

If a chimp can figure out how to use a twig to ‘fish’ for termites, I’m sure you can use some make-shift tools.

Use any sturdy kitchen item (spoon, spatula handle, etc…) and use it to shove a sponge down the mug. I challenge you to try it out and tell me that it doesn’t work.