Ceramic or Paper Cups?
by Bonnie Alter, London 
on 11.13.07
Ceramic or paper cups? Deciding which is the greenest and most environmentally friendly should be a no-brainer. Intuititively we go for the ceramic. But an article by the that intrepid green goddess Lucy Siegle, causes one to pause. She quotes an analysis that concludes that you would need to use your ceramic mug 1,600 times for it to break even, in energy terms, with paper cups. This is due to the fact that kilns use incredible amounts of energy, as do dishwashers, whereas plastic cups are recycled quite efficiently in the UK.
However with the insane growth of coffee cafes and caffein addicts, the use of coffee cups has exploded. Brit's consume 70M cups of coffee a day and in the US, Starbucks alone fills 2.3Bn cups a year. Added to this is the fact that paper cups are coated with polyethelene plastic. This makes separation, and hence recycling of the paper cups even more complicated. Starbucks has introduced a cup which is 10% recycleable, Tully's is completely compostable but available only in the USA. So it looks like carrying your own is the answer for now or cut back on the java. :: Observer Magazine.
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The energy analysis is a moot point, because we all have a durable mug sitting at home in the cupboard when we get a paper cup for coffee. So by bringing your own you save the footprint of making and disposing that single-use item, by utilizing an object that already exists for the purpose.
I found 16 ceramic and travel mugs at home. Most of these are giveaways w/ business logos, and no I'm not a pack rat.
So don't overthink this. Grab a durable mug out of the cupboard and stop buying paper/plastic/styrofoam cups. And no need to buy a new thingie. This didn't really work for me until I committed to simply not buying the coffee if I forgot the cup. Now I remember.
Oh, and the coffee tastes better . . .
I would be surprised if even 5% of disposable cups get recycled. Ceramic still looks best from here.
Plus coffee just taste better in a ceramic mug.
My mug at work probably gets used 5 times a day, 5 days a week, roughly 48 weeks a year. So in less than a year and a half it has paid for its energy.
BTW - you would think there would be some connection between cost and the energy needed to produce an object. But I can easily get a ceramic mug for $1. Try getting 1600 paper cups for that price.
Plus coffee just taste better in a ceramic mug.
My mug at work probably gets used 5 times a day, 5 days a week, roughly 48 weeks a year. So in less than a year and a half it has paid for its energy.
BTW - you would think there would be some connection between cost and the energy needed to produce an object. But I can easily get a ceramic mug for $1. Try getting 1600 paper cups for that price.
And you can get a used mug at the local thrift store for next to nothing. Try finding a used paper cup for sale!
I am rather tired of Life Cycle Analysis. LCA only measures this point in time, and is weighted by how we value things NOW.
So, a paper cup may seem okay now, but when it is made from the last tree on earth, that paper cup will be literally priceless. This may seem unimportant, until you consider Easter Island.
LCA has no capacity to value for the future. Furthermore, since no one has produced a reasonable and detailed scenario of a sustainable future, it wouldn't matter if LCA could value for the future, because we still wouldn't know how to weight the variables.
Given this, we must stop thinking of disposability as a possibility.
What you are all forgetting is the cost to clean the reusable mug. The energy to get the water, the very limited use of the water and how much gets wasted, the energy cost to heat the water and any energy that may be used to dry the mug. This is certianly not negligable.
You also fail to account for the HUGE amount of energy used by kilns to make the ceramic mug versus the tiny amount of energy to make a styrofoam cup (which is actually a VERY energy efficient process).
BTW, while styrofoam does not degrade while the paper does, the paper give off a lot of methane in the decomposition process.
I hate to say this, but if you look at total lifecycle and use energy cost styrofoam wins hands down.
This is really a factual drag :-(
In addition to the energy and water used to clean ceramic, we also need to consider the amount of detergent (phosphorus) typically used to clean ceramic which is eventually discharged to the streams. In an office setting, water equivalent to 2 times the volume of the mug may be used to rinse between cups, and excessive amounts of detergents used at the end of each day. What do you think?
Has anyone considered the extra paper towel use in the mug vs paper cup comparisons? After hand washing your mug, it is wet and in our office paper towels are used to dry your mug. Which is greener: using a paper cup or using a mug, washing it, and drying it with a paper towel?
Umm..
I use a travel ceramic mug. I wash it by hand with cool water, and it doesn't really need any drying. If I'm not using it immediately, I can let it sit for a few minutes and it will dry on its own. If I AM using it immediately, it doesn't matter if it's wet, since it will only get wetter with the coffee!
You shouldn't use detergent on your coffee mug. It will make your coffee taste like poo. If anything, use baking soda ONLY when the ceramic has spots on it.
95% of all paper cups can be recycled at present quite easily.