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53 Comments
- radu79, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32That article addresses only the energy required to manufacture/was them.
However, you have to also factor the cost of the materials as well, and the cost of the waste disposal (transport, storage, etc.).
So better just use the reusable cups, in the long run.
P.S. And I don't wash all the cups in the dishwasher. For example, if I want to reuse a cup with the same liquid, I just refill it. Or just wash it in the sink a little. - SpectralSounds, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31Ive been waiting for this question to be answered scientifically. Finally, Ill be able to get some sleep tonight.
- dogstar0125, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25Yes, it's a flawed analysis. Factor in the 242 MJ required to drive your Suburban to the store to buy a new bag of disposable cups and you'll get a very different result.
- mattsidesinger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21I can't leave awesome looking teeth marks in my ceramic coffee cup.
- fjvwing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Um, says nothing about the cost of disposal and degradation of environment.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20Wow, this is old. I think now we'll have more of a consideration for the energy used than ever before.
Did this only get to the homepage because it was submitted by user "kevinrose"? One must wonder how well a link with clearly stated age would perform if any other user submitted it. - merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18Don't forget the cost trucking 'em to the store, and the cost of the dump truck swinging by your house on friday morning, either.
- Bob042, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Maybe it's an experiment. See if a 13 year old, possibly flawed, boring one page story can be frontpaged and stay there, just because Kevin Rose dugg it.
- nonpareil, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14This analysis is fatally flawed, as there is no mention anywhere of drinking out of a straw.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The estimate in TFA is divided by the number of cups you can wash at once -- .18 megajoules is only enough energy to warm a single pint of water to boiling -- clearly far less than the amount of energy a whole dishwasher cycle takes.
- jcaino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6great, wonderfull - foam cups cost less energy to use.
but what about when you throw it away? at least paper will bio-degrade in a reasonable amount of time. - gormenghast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5He's only considering 1/2 the cycle here..
- TailGunner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Right. So, instead of using more of my local hydroelectric energy, I should save the environment by contributing more paper and foam to the landfills! Makes perfect sense.
- spidoman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Disposable cups = classy. I hear the ladies love the plastic throw away champagne glasses.
- derekbalsam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's your comprehension of graphs and math that is fundamentally flawed.
The vertical axis is "energy per use". It wouldn't go up :per usefor the disposable cups because the total energy is divided by the number of uses, giving "per use". - Ebulating, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Washing a cup in a dishwasher after every single use is complete overkill. Since cups are usually filled with liquids I've found that they don't really even need soap to get them clean just rinse them with water and a bottle brush. That would seriously tip the balance in favor of reusable cups.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Who brings a backpack to the store?"
Clearly, you've never been to Santa Cruz. Those damn hippies love their reusable containers.
Hell, the whole Whole Foods chain offers a small discount if you bring your own reusable bag in to carry your groceries home. - scronline, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Except for the fact that foam is non-biodegradable and non-recyclable I could go with that. Everything else on the list can either be recycled or biodegradable at least to a some extent. Let's not discount that many people (myself included) don't need, use, nor want a dishwasher. Washing by hand has worked for centuries. Why should I use up energy resources just so I don't have to spend 5-10 minutes washing up after my meals? Not to mention dishes are usually cleaner when done by hand and you don't end up with all those "extra" chemicals in the sewer water just so you can have "spot free" dishes or whatever.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4For further reference, an "Energy star" washer uses at most 1.5 kWh per cycle (including water heater energy usage).
http://energystar.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/energystar.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2538
That's 5.4 megajoules. 30 times the estimate in TFA.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=1.33+kWh+in+Joules&btnG=Google+Search - siszam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I still have glasses I bought ten years ago. No way disposable glasses can beat that.
- CollegeRuled, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Indeed, in situations where cups are likely to be lost or broken and thus have a short average lifetime, disposable cups are the preferred option.
NO ***** KIDDING. - donaldgelman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I thought the same thing. Surely disposal should be included in the life cycle of a cup. Even then, it becomes more complicated because of recycling . . . . Personally I marked it as inaccurate because it is misleading, but to each is their own I guess.
- xcoastie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Or reusing the disposable cups a few times before throwing them away would tip the balance in favor of the disposable cups. Especially the red plastic cups, they are durable and can be rinsed out between uses. Then instead of running the dishwasher just toss them.
- DrewBlood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ffejrey
I use canvas, and not just Whole Foods gives discounts for it. We just go to a regular supermarket and get one. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7So...people use a dishwasher to wash ONE cup?
- InfiniteNothing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Obvious solution: Don't wash your cups every time you use them :)
I'm not sure specific energy is an appropriate figure to use.
Yes, landfill use is an issue. - jtwilkins, on 04/03/2009, -2/+4Hey Kevin Rose dugg it... it has to be true!!111 Monkey see monkey digg.
Marked as Inaccurate. - drake77, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What about plastic disposable cups? I use red solo cups almost exclusively.
- Fourmiii, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Q: Who brings a backpack to the store ?
A: Mindful people who plan on doing their grocery !
Truly a simple habit that could save a lot..
The world uses between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year, according to reusablebags.com.
Some places around the world tax the use of plastic bags (japan, ireland, among others..) and some even make it illegal to use them !!
Imagine facing 7-10 years in jail for carrying your already-over-wrapped goods in plastic bags. That would probably make you bring a backpack to the grocery store! - eventsupplies, on 06/15/2009, -0/+0But.. paper cups do need to be sorted and recycled properly in order to be environmentally sound!
---------------------------
Robert Daniel
http://www.eventsupplies.co.uk/product_listing,7,0 ... - naturewoman56, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Are they kidding? Do they think everyone has a dishwasher? As scientists, perhaps they should factor in the the energy-inefficiency of hauling truckloads of styrofoam cups to a landfill, as opposed to reusing glasses. It's sure my preference. Hey, some of us don't have microwaves, either (by choice).
- shaf140, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0This study was done way back in 1994, here is a blog post that is more recent.
http://www.genexe.com/?p=296 - derekbalsam, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Digg me down, I double commented.
- Fourmiii, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3What an idiotic study !!
I found this excerpt in another article : "most people are surprised that ILEA recommends plastic bags at the grocery store, for instance"
.. but that article only compares plastic bags to paper bags .. against a 1990 background!! The article doesn't even suggest using a conventional backpack or even using no bag (pockets, anyone??).
Truly pathetic.. - gr00vy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Ok, this study is fundamentally flawed.
If you notice, the energy usuage of each use of the paper cup and the foam cup do not go up in number of uses. Which means either the same cup is used over and over again and never cleaned, or the graph is wrong for the one use cups.
What you should see is that the graph of the single use cups goes up, fairly linearly, this dramatically changes the cost/energy equivelance between the two items. Meaning that probably it is worthwhile to use reusuable cups when they are used less than 50 times.
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. This is probably just a damn lie. - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1All those medieval peasants drinking from ceramic cups were ruining the environment!
- nathanwalker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is the perfect damned article for digg. Its about something that really doesnt matter, but it does it very meticulously and scientifically. Dugg haha
- mcnappy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@dogstar0125
I may have to pass up on that Hummer I was looking at buying. = - AdebisiTheGamer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I reuse my plastic grocery bags around 10 to 20 times each before they are to stretched to continue using them.
But, when I think about it, I could likely reuse paper bags several times as well, if I was careful with them. And they do not carry the landfill issues plastic bags do. You can recycle them in your blue box, or you can recycle them in your compost heap.
As far as who brings a backpack to the store? I do when I ride my bike. I also keep all my grocery bags in my car trunk so I can reuse them and never have to worry about forgetting them at home.
So while I still do use plastic bags, I use about 1 tenth to 1 twentyth of most shoppers. And its not like it takes any effort. Unpack the groceries, put the bags back into your car trunk.
So people can argue about what is truly greener, paper or plastic bags, but there is no excuse for not reusing the bags you do use, several times each. - ffejrey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Well around here they give you the bag free of charge so I guess I never thought about bringing my own backpack....and no places offer discount if you have your own reusable bag. Now that I think of it it would be a good idea...especially if plastic bags were against the law. And we are hippie free as well.
- babaghanoush24, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1kkjkjhkjn,m,n
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faskdfh - drewhenson, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4screw disposable cups, hooray for energy inefficiency!
- WaterJake, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11) Washing by hand is more inefficient than a dishwasher according to a footnote at this website.
2) Polystyrene is recyclable, it just isn't recycled in curbside programs.
3) There is no landfill problem, we have tons of landfill space, much of which is tapped as a source of free power (methane gas). - SopMan99, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0So who really puts ONE cup in the dishwasher? The analysis makes mathematical referrence to the amount of energy it takes, assuming a certain amount of dish washing liquid. I personally wait until I fill the dishwasher before I run it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Why does it assume a cup is washed every ***** time in the dishwasher?? I rinse a cup in the sink like 3 times a day and only wash it with soap 1x a day. Dishwashers aren't necessary, if you're vigilant and minimize what you actually USE. No need for more than 3 forks, spoons, knives per person. Just ***** wash it and put it in the rack to dry. Even 2 of each per person should suffice! 1 perfect, well-designed, thick, glass 16-20 ounce tall cup is all that's needed. Maybe 2 plates. Vigilant!
- akkr24, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0this is greattttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
- ffejrey, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Who brings a backpack to the store?
- ffejrey, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1We also have more energy efficient dishwashers now...and I'm sure manufacturing is different then 13 years ago...
- systemghost, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Science is ***** awesome. Suck on that hippies. Styro all the way!
- radu79, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5Well, he is the founder, so he has the right to 'cheat' a little bit, every once in a while, no? :)
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