Sift Blog

Takeaway coffee cups seem to be an ever present part of our busy, modern, coffee-fueled lives. When everything in the world moves so fast who has time to sit down and actually drink their coffee in the cafe? But this busy, on-the-go lifestyle creates a very big waste problem caused by the essential takeaway coffee cup.

Because takeaway coffee cups have a waterproof lining they are not recyclable… and who has time to rinse the lid if everything else is going in the trash? But this very attitude is filling our landfills at an alarming rate.

The disposable coffee cup pandemic that is filling our rubbish bins

You can read all about the environmental impact of coffee cups here and trust me, it does not make for pretty reading.

But luckily for all us coffee addicted people out there there is a solution: reusuable cups. They are everywhere now! Keepcups are our newest, and pretty effective answer to the coffee waste problem.

The answer to our prayers?

But it still doesn’t completely fix it because what happens when you leave your keepcup behind? You still buy these very un-environmentally friendly takeaway cups.

So here I leave you for some food for thought: wouldn’t it be amazing, on those occasions that you do buy a takeaway coffee cup if it was actually 100% recyclable? Combining that with the use of recyclable cups like the keep cup would really make a difference in the world and in our landfills!

A list of the most common household wastes that cannot be recycled include:

• Broken glass
• Ceramics
• Rubber bands
• Wet, dirty or moldy paper
• Plastic types #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7
• Plastic bottle caps
• Napkins and tissues
• Fast food wrappers
• Aluminum foil
• Neon paper
• Stickers
• Waxed paper
• Milk cartons (the paper type ones, think American milk, or soy milk)

So many of these items are still common, everyday household goods, which look like they should be recyclable, but they really aren’t!

Lets take broken glass for example: currently broken glass cannot be recycled due to the danger that it poses to those sorting through the recycled materials. But we can recycle glass. The answer here seems so logical… should we have a place where we can seperate broken glass from non-broken glass, so that broken glass can be processed in a way that is safe to the operators and also enables it to still be recycled! Read the rest of this entry »

My last post was all about waste separation and recycling properly, but after reading some of the entries at My Plastic Free Life I started thinking about the age old plastic bottle debate.

Everything today is wrapped or packaged in plastic, with nothing more obvious than the plastic water bottle.

unnecessary waste or needed water?

Here in Christchurch we are blessed with one of the most pure water supplies of a New Zealand city, and it always made me laugh a little when people bought bottled water, because most New Zealand water brands are filled with Christchurch tap water.

But after reading the many articles on plastic bottle waste, it doesn’t seem so funny anymore. Each New Zealander consumes approximately 31kg of plastic waste a year, so while I was writing about the importance of separating our waste, it turns out we still have a very big problem with minimizing our waste, and in particular our plastic waste.

How is this alright?!

So what are we going to do about it?

There’s a heap of easy steps, and the first one is buy a decent, reusuable water bottle, get into the habit of taking it everywhere so you don’t need to buy that plastic water bottle that will just get thrown into the recycling (or even worse, the rubbish) later!

If you think your up for it, you can even try some of the challenges on My Plastic-Free Life ranging from preparing a meal without plastic, to taking plastic waste tallies… but whatever you do, we should all be trying to be more conscious about our plastic waste… especially when it comes to bottled water. Save some money and try to minimize your consumption, turn it into a challenge and it could be fun!

Images:

http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=pump+bottle&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=2d46T-T_I6SdiAeT9MztCQ&biw=1366&bih=667&sei=2946T–gJcariAektdT7CQ#um=1

http://www.google.co.nz/search?q=pump+bottle&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=2d46T-T_I6SdiAeT9MztCQ&biw=1366&bih=667&sei=2946T–gJcariAektdT7