WaterNotes

Coffee With a Clear Conscience

Everyone loves graphs right?  Sure you do.  Here’s one comparing the amount of trash I generated from drinking Coke in bottles and cans and plastic Starbucks cups in October (blue) and Dec/January (green).

Its pretty easy to see that while I have definitely kicked the Coke habit (three in a whole month, c’mon, that’s amazing for me!) my coffee intake has more than doubled.  Hmm.  If only Starbucks would stop serving those delicious iced coffees in plastic cups.  Ugh.  Is there some reason they wont put them in paper cups?  Is the glue in the paper version unstable at frozen temperatures (or something)?  

I approached my local unsuspecting coffee girl with this question and she eyed me with that withering “oh god we’ve got another one” look.  This was after I had asked her not to give me a lid or a straw.  Oh, and after I had asked the girl at the cashier if they had organic sugar. 

She didnt have an answer for me and put my iced coffee in a plastic cup.  I’ve actually started a collection.  I’m thinking I’ll start seeds of passionflower in them and give them away for Valentine’s Day presents to lucky people in the Bio department. 

Have I just gone insane or is it everyone else?  Lets face it … I may be ridiculously clumsy (evidence: fall from horse = broken ankle, tiny fall on snowboard = broken wrist, trip over underwater log = face plant in mud and awesome oyster scars on my legs) but I dont exactly need a bib on my coffee cup.  Which is exactly what I think lids are.  Bibs.  What are we, five? 

And straws?  If cigarettes - which are just as thin in size - can give you wrinkles around your mouth from puffing on them then can straws give you (very unsexy) lip lines too?  Hmm.  Thoughts to ponder for those of us who are straw obsessed.  Nevermind the paper sleeves they’re packed in and the obvious plastic-is-forever problem. 

When did paper straws become such a faux pas anyway?  I see to remember them from my childhood.  If you complain that they dissolved into mush too quickly I’m going to give you the honest truth: you drink too slow. 

I gave up Coke out of a desire to enrich my life.  I wouldn’t bring it back in for anything (honestly, I feel a lot better these days, seriously) but having the occasional coffee break is something I dont want to give up on.  And lets face it, being green shouldnt mean being an ascetic.  I want to live my life as before, just without the unnecessary waste that prevents me from getting to that “making a dent” thing I’m always raving about.  I’m pushing against the things that prevent my life from being both abundant (as No Impact Man says) and earth-friendly. 

Why can’t I have my coffee-with-a-clear-conscience and drink it too?