The total carbon footprint for a sample paper cup has been shown to be in the region of 0.11 kilos of CO2, this includes all aspects of the manufacture, materials, production, transportation and disposal.
Most of the raw materials used in the production of the paper cup comes from non-recycled sources. This seems like an odd choice for a disposable item such as a paper cup, surely it would be easy to infinitely reuse the same material from paper cups and avoid using more raw materials? Wrong. Because the paper is to come in direct contact with a food source, in this case a beverage, there are certain standards to be adhered to in terms of material quality. This means that these disposable items will continue to consume natural resources.
Looking at these figures it is easy to vilify the disposable paper cup as wasteful and harmful to the environment, an unnecessary evil where reusable products would be better placed to conserve natural resources. Actually no! In the second part of this story I will demonstrate how actually, the converse proves true instead.
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