Not cringe worthy

posted June 25th, 2017 at 3:32 PM

A CTV News piece was recently aired covering the topic of banning disposable coffee cups in Vancouver. I don't confess to having a brilliant idea of how to solve this consumer-conspicuous problem; but I do confess to being surprised at the reaction people had to re-usable coffee mugs. Mostly it was versions of eewwwwe. A US-based company has designed coffee mugs and take-out-food containers that are collected, washed and re-used...but many of the Vancouver faces were : [ when presented with the idea. So how are re-usable coffee cups so different than using restaurant plates, cups and glasses that thousands of people have already used? What about all the forks and spoons that everyone else had in their mouth before you? They were simply cleaned. Ironically, if these folks didn't get their coffee/latte to go, they'd be sitting inside the cafe sipping the very same coffee from a mug that's had many, many, previous sippers. So really, the only thing between you and eewwwwe...is a dishwasher and soap. I think that their general reaction to re-usable mugs is actually based in a cultural bias (and dare I say privilege) that's masquerading as a "hygiene" issue. I stopped 'buying coffee out' because I couldn't conscience the constant chucking of a coffee cup. So, I now bring my own travel mug to coffee shops. Some are like 'hey terrific' about it, and some still treat it like its a big drag to deal with someone's mug. Isn't it time we all started bringing our own mugs more often? Or, get warmed-up to the idea of a re-usable mug service?

6 Comments

Or better yet...

Jun 25, 2017 at 10:50pm

Make your own damn coffee at home and save a bunch of money as well as the environment.

Anonymous

Jun 25, 2017 at 11:41pm

I have yet to find a travel mug that could be cleaned effectively. But I don't drink coffee, so this doesn't affect me.

Wilbur

Jun 26, 2017 at 8:34am

Is all this stuff is an overpriced luxury....Coffee..take out food....if you take away the convenience or add an "ick" factor people won't buy it..just sayin.

a business opportunity

Jun 26, 2017 at 8:51am

for someone enterprising....replacing paper with ceramic/glass...washing...making it cheap.... who wants to make money, anyone?

100% agree

Jun 26, 2017 at 9:48am

If everyone was forced to store all their disposable cups and take-out food containers that they used beside their bed for a year, they would make the conscious effort to reduce and eliminate waste.

It's pure "out of sight, out of mind". Garbage is garbage. The fact that you throw it out doesn't mean it disappears.

I'm totally fine with eliminating disposable coffee cups and have everyone use a portable mug. Europeans laugh at us when they see us walking around with disposable cups of coffee because we look ignorant of the bigger picture.

In Soviet Vancouver...

Jun 28, 2017 at 11:33am

... this degree of collectivism is really beyond the pale. A city exists to change the lightbulbs, pave the roads, manage the sewers, not to micromanage commerce in this way.

It speaks to our culture of "legislative supremacy," where nothing is off limits, similar to the view, by the by, that was held in the USSR. Comrade citizens, paper cups are a decadent legacy of bourgeois capitalism! We must revolutionize the food-industry with our five year plan to eliminate paper cups!

If people want to use their own cups, fine. If people want to bring their own coffee, fine. this sort of soviet-style collective management has no place in a free society.