excessive behaviors
i have known and spent a lot of time with someone for almost 9 years now who drinks at least 2 cups of coffee every day, and never, ever, brings a reusable cup. i have been using a resuable cup every day for the same amount of time. so: 9 years x 365 days x 2 cups = ~6,570 paper cups, with plastic lids, that he has disposed of, while i have used ~1.
this kind of thing drives me nuts. i mean, on a rare occasion, i will get a to-go cup, if i forgot mine, or i am wanting a beverage at unusual place and time and without container. but why does someone who HABITUALLY drinks coffee at the same time, from the same place, refuse to bring a cup? i even bought him one once. he never used it. i, on the otherhand, will often forgo getting a drink when i am thirsty because i don’t have a cup, or getting food to go when i am hungry because i don’t want to get the plastic forks/spoons/containers. it can wait.
people sometimes think i’m being really ridiculous about this. but i do, honestly, i do, think that every. single. thing. matters. but i find i am often alone in this, especially about the cups.
and so i was SO EXCITED when i recently watched this TED video, in which Chris Jordan uses statistics about disposable cups to try to visually show the impact of people not recognizing their individual actions as collectively consequential.
i really like this talk because he gets into exactly why i get so unnerved about things like disposable cups in a way i could never before articulate, and then makes a really beautiful point in the end about our culture and mindfulness.
watch it.. it’s only 11 minutes.
the thing about cups haunts me.
40 million paper cups. every. single. day. mostly for coffee.
410,000 every 15 minutes.
think about it. please. (also embedded below)
Filed in culture and random linkage, environment, most linked/commented on | Tagged with plastic, TED | Comments (13)
13 Responses to “excessive behaviors”
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hi Amy,
Kindly forgive me for rebutting the point you’ve made. Please consider the impact of your flying on airplanes for thousands of discretionary miles each year. Also please consider the impact of renting a large vehicle and making discretionary trips out to the desert each year. Take a moment to consider whether the impact of your one (1) year of personal discretionary travel far exceeds the impact of nine (9) years of paper cups with lids. Paper is a renewable resource. And a whole lot of plastic lids can be produced from the petroleum it takes to drive a U-haul on one round-trip to Nevada. I know, I know, it’s a quality of life issue, right? I’ve asked the question before, but it bears repeating… If you needed to make a lifestyle change in order to reduce your immense carbon footprint caused by all of this personal discretionary travel, would you be able to adjust?? Thanks in advance for your thoughtful consideration of the above.
much love,
-bebop Pete.
i’ve answered this sort of comment dozens of times before, and i believe asked before by YOU, so i’m not going to go into it again too deeply.
yes, we all make choices. yes, some of them are greater than others. my point is that reusable coffee cup is a SMALL, EASY choice that has a HUGE collective impact – just like the plastic shopping bag issue. this is different than drawing a line that says ‘i’m not flying on planes anymore ever, to anywhere, because of the impacts of flying’. it’s the small changes that i don’t understand that people can’t make the sacrifice for – the ones that AREN’T quality of life issues but would collectively mean a lot. i think that’s also the point of the presentation. why not change the small things we can, that mean almost nothing to us? the larger ones, the life-changing ones, are harder. yes. i agree.
and i’m not sure why you’re making it sound like i travel all over the place all the time. i probably travel less than most everyone else i know. is it because it’s the easiest way to prove your theoretical point?
besides, for the record, the last 2 flights i’ve purchased, i’ve also purchased carbon offsets for them.
One nice thing about my workplace is that the CEO is a cheapskate. He got rid of disposable coffee cups and got everyone a company mug to save money.
I keep a steel bottle and a “camping” fork-knife-spoon set in my car for when I eat my favorite fast food Chinese restaurant.
Do you know if politically/economically fair coffees like “Equal Exchange” are less brutal on the environment than commercial brands?
BTW, if someone drives an SUV and drinks coffee daily from a paper cup I think both habits should go. However, if that person will not stop driving the SUV I still think the world is better off is s/he at least uses a reusable cup. I don’t buy the reasoning that if you can’t have it all you are better off having nothing.
Amy, first let me apologize for being so chatty this morning.
I think anyone would agree that people have a limited number of things they can pay attention to, so it is better to pay attention to changes that yield the greatest results for their values.
They are working on a new edition, but a few years back the Union Of Concerned Scientists wrote a book inspired by this idea.
The scientists came up with a list of the 11 most effective behavior changes consumers can do. It gave fascinating explanations for why other habits that get a lot more lip service,matter less
Neither coffee cups nor air travel made this top 11 list.
If anyone is interested I have an old blog post about this book
http://beforewisdom.com/blog/?p=102
Beforewisdom, it looks like travel issues did make the list even if not specifically air travel.
Amy, I am curious what you would say to someone who purchased a carbon offset for the 6,570 paper cups with lids he used. (This has to be a smallish offset, BTW.)
Also, I think the problem is in trying to identify what is an easy change for others to make. For me, I think no one should eat meat, ever. This should not be a difficult change. Others call it a quality of life issue, but I (privately) call it a sin against nature. I don’t expect others to obey my wishes and give up meat, regardless of how easy I think this should be for them. We need to try and live by example, in my opinion, and give others good ideas about what they can do. Taking them to task for driving an SUV, flying in a plane, eating meat, or using disposable cups is never as effective as we’d like. Physician heal thyself, right?
There’s a seemingly pervasive attitude where I live that most people want to make the largest impact they can, in every way. They drive huge SUVs like they are tiny sports cars, they crank their stereos as loud as they’ll go, they throw their trash on the ground literally feet away from a trash can. It is maddening.
I don’t even pretend to profess to be perfect but I am at least cognizant of what my actions mean now and into the future. I try not to use disposable stuff. I drink my coffee from travel mug, I drink my water from my Klean Kanteen and use a well-used plastic spoon (the kind for camping) for any meals I have out on the road. I’m sure there are a thousand better ways to minimize my impact on the planet and I’m willing to address them in turn.
But sometimes it feels totally futile in the face of so many other people doing their best to leave as large a footprint as they can and to hell with the consequences.
There is a public policy angle I support whole heartedly, however (in spite of my earlier comments about living by example). And that is when the voters (or their reps) decide that something is good policy and put tax incentives in place for good behavior or taxes in place for bad behavior. An example is the mandatory deposit on beer and soda cans. Vermont’s highways were littered with bottles in the 1970′s and now except for the occassional artifact from those years you can’t find one. I would favor, for instance a $0.10 tax on each paper cup. Make those who stomp out those heavy footprints support programs to offset their impact. This goes for huge gas taxes, huge airline taxes, and anything else that rewards those who live simply and penalizes those who live lavishly. And the philosphy is not one of sour grapes or punishing the non-poor. It is simply that this planet is as much mine as it is yours and you should have to compensate the public coffers for the harm you do. (Anyone say $0.10 per pound meat tax? No, I didn’t think so. But it would help bring attention to a public health and environmental issue that is probably bigger than most understand.)
Jon, I grew up in Vermont and loved the fact that those bottles and cans represented money. The only problem with a ten cent tax on paper cups is that they are not recyclable and cannot be easily (or sanitarily) reused. Aluminum is 100% recyclable and efficient to do so, same for glass bottles.
That said, I wouldn’t mind a discount for someone who brings their own reusable cup. Or a small “disposal” tax.
I like the idea of use taxes to help educate people that making a minimal impact is not only environmentally friendly but financially friendly as well.
“Do you know if politically/economically fair coffees like “Equal Exchange” are less brutal on the environment than commercial brands?”
i believe this is true, according to the bean-sellers at Peet’s, who i grill often about where things come from, which are organic and which aren’t (FYI: many of their single-origin beans are organic, just not certified, so they can’t label them for sale that way. ask them which ones), and what kinds of things are going on with coffee bean production these days. since coffee beans are brown and harvested in really poor regions of the world, and it’s one of the largest traded commodity in the world, it’s one of the more important foods to buy fair trade (JUST LIKE CHOCOLATE). see more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_coffee
peet’s does discount for bringing your own cup, supermarkets now give “bag credits” for bringing your own bag, and the deposits on bottles and cans cleaned up the whole midwest when they were implemented and i don’t understand why it can’t happen in more places, on more things.
as for the rest of your comments: i will say over and over again: i understand that huge lifestyle changes, like giving up your car and going public transport and/or bicycle, or even going vegetarian, are difficult, and huge. i’m not saying that everyone should be come a bicycling vegan (although that is what i myself aspire to be), but i think the small changes, the ones that make almost little or no impact on your QoL or how you go about your day, like reusing a coffee cup, are also super important, not only because of their collective impact, but because of the mindset that it fosters. that’s what the TED video is all about.
Amy, thanks for the info about coffee.
In addition to the coffee thing…
“Fair trade” coffee is better than cheaper coffee. But rest assured that with things like coffee and chocolate (which Amy’s correct about, they do come from poorer countries and about 90% of the value is added when they’re shipped off to the U.S. or Sweden or Belgium)…when you buy that really expensive single-farm coffee, or chocolate made from small batches of cacao, those companies actually pay more to the workers than “fair trade”.
“Fair trade” is actually considered a low standard for price when considering high end beans (both coffee and cacao) and those who want the best, don’t even bother buying that low.
Holden
P.S. I learned this at the Slow Food conference in SF last year, when the owners of Bittersweet Chocolate and Blue Bottle Coffee spoke at a chocolate and coffee tasting. It was fascinating.
a recent thoughtful blog post on the subject of travel v. the environment:
http://arduousblog.blogspot.co.....e-are.html