Hot Drink Paper Cups Explained

This is a very common question; the answer primarily depends on the heat of beverage you intend to serve. We stock a wide range of cups from single-wall plain cups, to our newest triple wall "Ultimate" Paper Cups. The key difference is the insulating properties of the specific cup type.

Single wall cups are perfect for warm drinks; however piping hot coffee would be rather uncomfortable to hold without the use of a cup sleeve (available seperately). Due to their single-wall construction there is no additional layer to insulate the heat of the drink.

Double wall and Ripple cups are specifically designed for far greater heat retention, the dual layers work in a similar way to a thermos flask; trapping air and isolating the customers hand from hot beverages. In addition to this, the extra rigidity is ideally suited to "coffee on the go".

With different coffee shop and drinks providers favouring different disposable cup materials, it is interesting to find out which is the most effective insulator. Perhaps the best way to discuss the insulation properties of a paper cup is to compare it with another commonly used non-china cup material such as polystyrene. This can be done by performing a simple test to show whether the polystyrene or paper cup kept the tea it contained hotter for longer.

Differences between Paper cups and Polystyrene containers
The heat retention test involves pouring 200 ml of boiling water into a polystyrene cup and the same amount into a hot drink paper cup to find out which is the better insulator. For a wider comparison you could also use a plastic container as part of the test to see how its insulation properties compare. We all know each of these vessels will provide a certain level of insulation, but this test can help show which is the best method of keeping liquids heated.

How to measure the temperature
You can use a thermometer to measure the temperature of the liquid. Taking a heat reading every minute for ten minutes, then again at 20 minutes and 30 minutes, will help to show whether the paper cup is the best insulator. You can record these findings as a graph if you wish to make the results clearer.

Heat analysis
In a similar test, cup and food container specialist Contexpan found that the liquid in both cups dropped in temperature quite quickly during the first five minutes, from around 100 degrees centigrade to around 90 degrees. However, at this point, the liquid in the polystyrene cup cooled at a significantly slower rate than the paper cup, remaining at around 80 degrees after 25 minutes compared with the liquid in the paper cup, which had dropped to around 70 degrees.

The findings
The results state that the polystyrene cup is the better insulator, with the paper cup in second place. A third cup, a plastic cup, was used in the Contexpan test and this presenting inferior insulation properties, with the water temperature falling to below 70 degrees centigrade after 25 minutes. However, companies such as Event Supplies are now manufacturing ripple disposable hot drink paper cups with an air pocket in between to trap the heat and provide an extra barrier of insulation. Although conclusive findings have not been compiled, early indications suggest that these new double walled cups will be even better insulators than their Polystyrene counterparts.

Event supplies stock a huge range of quality catering disposable items used throughout professional catering businesses, whether you are organising a large event or small party, event supplies service, prices and product range ensure your catering disposable needs are exceeded.

Event Supplies
http://www.eventsupplies.co.uk
0844 4995456

Party Supplies

Party Supplies

folk need no excuse to throw a party if there is an event or occasion to be celebrated, like a victory party at high school or at work, new job or promotion from work, wedding party, birthday party and so on. Hence, buying your Party Supplies online is advantageous from both a choice and financial point of view. Internet traders often have a much more expansive product range, meaning you should easily be able to source all your goods from the same vendor.

Some handy tips when scouring the Internet for a supplier which will give you with what you require, since the first and foremost thing you need to do whether you are getting ready to throw a sports, birthday or wedding celebration is to look for a reputable distributor. There are a huge number of Christmas party supplies retailers appearing online, not all are as trusted as they may first appear. Some may claim to hold a greater quantity of stock than they actually hold, meaning they could possibly fail to meet your needs, others may be one-man-bands pretending to be much larger suppliers.

You would be advised to ensure that the company you decide to use has a good reputation in the industry. If you look for catering supplies companies by browsing the Internet you will be surprised to find out that there are hundreds or maybe thousands of such vendors. Hence, there is always a possibility that you will encounter a disappointing service. In order to avoid disappointing products and service, it is advisable to contact the potential suppliers by telephone prior to ordering. If it is possible, visit the showroom in person and request to see samples of their products before making a decision, although this is not always possible with the modern Internet website / warehouse business style of business.

It is important to be skeptical of vendors that only specialise in supplying poor quality imported goods. Although this can seem like a great way of cutting overheads, there is a difference between a well priced item and a poor quality one. This is particularly evident with plastic tumblers. It is possible to buy extremely cheap disposable tumblers, however it can be a case of false economy if people need to "double up" the cups in order to get the required strength.

In order to get the best pricing, it really does pay to shop around. The first thing to need to decide on is the quantities required. If bulk quantities of products are needed then there is no point in buying your party supplies from a small, low-volume trader. Their pricing structure will be geared towards smaller purchases, and stock levels could also pose a problem.

Event Supplies are a leading UK supplier of catering and party supplies, situated in the north of England. Our full range of products is delivered on a next-day basis with a free delivery available. Visit our website for all your Christmas Party Supply needs, all goods are in stock. Exclusive new range of 2010 Christmas Party Supplies in stock. Give our friendly sales team a call on 0844 4995456 and we will be happy to discuss your requirements.

Event Supplies
http://www.eventsupplies.co.uk
sales@eventsupplies.co.uk
0844 4995456

Paper Coffee Cups

There are a lot new Ripple cups emerging into the market at present, and some very competitively priced ones to boot.

The cost of making these products does not vary much from producer to producer, the cost of the right type of materials doesn't change either, factoring in economies of scale (purchasing power) will not change things a lot either, so how can there be massive differences in the cost price of Ripple Cups from one seller to another? Well, there is only really one way to reduce cost - use less expensive materials.

Unfortunately, the material some suppliers are compromising in order to reduce the cost of this product is the quality of the paper used.

Despite the the recycling efforts of late and green initiatives generally our beleaguered government sometimes get things right, in particular rules regarding goods which come into contact with foodstuffs. It is against the law for any product which comes into direct contact with foodstuffs to be made using recycled material for the simple reason that untreated paper (that may have once been lavatory roll for example) has the potential to make people ill if filled with hot liquid (such as coffee as toxins can migrate into the food. There is no way of checking what the recycled paper board was once used for - it could have contained anything and make people very ill.

All our Ripple Cups are made with food grade board and are sent for testing with PIRA (Printing Industry Research Association) who test the cups to make sure all the paper board used in their creation is food grade and the product is fit for purpose. Any trace of recycled material and the coffee cups would fail the test and will not be fit for purpose.

You might ask how firms can 'get away' with using or selling these cups without lawsuits etc? I suspect few of you reading this were aware that this could happen? Most people simply assume that organisations will check the quality of the Double Wall Cups used or sold by them. If you became ill after a cup of coffee would you look suspiciously at the paper cup, or wonder if the milk was off? I bet you would suspect the Paper Coffee Cup least of all.

Generally the only firms requesting food contact certificates to be delivered before delivery of Triple Wall Cups are the likes of KFC and the other large restaurants and coffee shops but any firm selling or using disposable cups should be asking for these certificates too. The first organisation to get sued will be the one without the correct documents.

To help you check if you may have unsuitable cups there is a check you can carry out yourself. Triple wall are also often described as 'triple layer cups' and there is one simple way to check if your ripple cups are produced using the correct board quality, and that is to tear the outer layer of the paper cup to reveal the hidden third layer of board.

Coffee Cups using unsuitable recycled board will be brown or grey, the proper legal board will normally be white.

Seen to be greener?

Lots of companies all over the globe are now offering for sale environmentally sound products, in our industry the most commonplace are the PLA (poly-lactic acid) coated Paper Coffee Cups the likes of Starbucks and the other major coffee houses are using in their desire to be seen to be as environmentally acceptable and sympathetic as possible.

Many are now offering reusable ceramic mugs to drink in store, or that you can purchase and then return to receive a rebate.

Hundreds of websites have sprung up now offering biodegradable disposable tableware and "to-go" products.

What people do not realise is that some of these products are completely redundant unless the companies and customers using these products change their habits too.

Having just finished reading a press release about a certain restaurant switching its type of paper coffee cups from the standard oil based lined item to the new in vogue PLA coated "biodegradable" types and advising us how they are single handedly rescuing the environment I feel it is necessary to point out a couple of things.

Firstly these PLA coated biodegradable cups will not biodegrade in a landfill so it of little use paying the extra cash for these paper coffee cups if they are simply thrown in the bin bags with the rest of the rubbish and disposed with other unsorted Catering Supplies.

Another point to note is that recycling and composting is mainly a service carried out by local councils; and many authorities treat waste differently from one area to another. Some will collect your waste products for resale (sold typically in the Far East) some will combust it for power, whereas some actually just send it straight to the landfill irrespective of how you have sorted it at home or the coffee shop.

One of the main problems with the short sighted efforts of these (usually large) companies trying their upmost to be seen as the leader in fighting climate change is that they do not consider where their rubbish ends up, how these new products are manufactured or how they should be handled in order to make the most of their biodegradable properties.

Biodegradable paper cups can create more waste if not properly sorted at waste recycling locations, these new PLA coated paper cups do not differ visually from standard oil lined paper coffee cups and as a result this can actually create more waste.

99% of all Paper Cups used/sold at present have an oil based lining and are regularly collected for recycling, if however one of these PLA lined paper coffee cups came into contact with these cups, the natural lining would react with the oil based lining and destroy the whole batch. There have already been stories of PLA containers finding their way into polypropylene recycling containers and contaminating their contents.

There have also been reports of deforestation in parts of the far east to create more space to grow the crops used for production of PLA and in the west we have been giving farm subsidies to farmers in Africa to grow many of the crops we are now using for PLA and bio-fuels - putting these people back into poverty!

Removing farmland once used to grow food in order to grow crops for bio-fuels and alternatives to plastics also increases food costs to customers, something most people will have noticed in the last year...

Paper vs. Styrofoam vs. Plastic Cups

What is the most environmentally friendly way of drinking from a cup or mug? Reusable cups are usually the preferred method as long as the cups get used a lot. As for disposable cups, the main three choices are paper, styrofoam, and plastic. Plastic cups are the cheapest to purchase but they can’t be used for hot drinks.

Pricewise, plastic cups cost $11 for 1000. Styrofoam costs $25 for 1000. Paper cups cost $80-120 for 1000. 100% compostable paper cups costs around $100 for 1000 made from natural corn starch. These prices are taken from Office Max based on a company pricing research done by Joanne.

Paper is less expensive and is biodegradable. Paper production can cause almost twice as much CO2 emissions and energy consumption as creating plastic or styrofoam products. Some paper cups are also not recyclable if they have a wax coating on them. Producing paper cups can also take more material by weight to produce for proper insulation compared to styrofoam and plastic cups. In this study done by Rowan University, the question of whether paper, plastic, or styrofoam cups were environmentally friendly was researched.

Styrofoam cups can insulate very well but they can break into small pieces that can be bad for children and animals. Styrofoam is created from benzene and other chemicals that can be bad for you and contribute to smog and global warming. It is not biodegradable and contributes to landfill pileup because it never deteriorates. Started in the beginning of 2007 in the city of San Francisco, restaurants were recently required to switch out using styrofoam containers and any other forms of polystyrene because they were environmentally unfriendly. Oakland, Berkeley, Portland, Santa Monica, Santa Cruz, and Seattle are some other cities that have banned styrofoam containers.

Plastic cups seem to be the best environmentally friendly option as most plastic cups are recyclable. If it is not recyclable, it can still be grounded up and used as a filler for other products. Plastic is also a much lighter material so there is less transportation and fuel costs needed. Plastic cups are also the cheapest to produce.

As for comparing disposable pint glasses vs. reusable cups, you would ideally think that reusable cups or mugs would be more environmentally friendly, but it is based on how many times the cup gets used. The materials used in creating them are significantly more than created disposable cups and it also requires using electricity, water, and soap to wash the cup after every use. This article here compares the coffee mug debate comparing the materials polystyrene, ceramic, and stainless steel. The conclusion is that a ceramic mug has the lowest material intensity but only if it has been used at least 46 times. In this study done at the University of Victoria in 1994, a reusable cup is compared to disposable cups but takes into consideration the energy used by a dishwasher to wash the cup.

Here is my conclusion of what to use. Obviously at home, you should always use glass, steel, or ceramic cups and mugs. Glass is probably the best choice. For the office, bringing in your own steel or ceramics mug is the best choice. As far as general use disposal cups, using plastic cups is the best choice because it is the most environmentally friendly compared to styrofoam and paper. It is the cheapest to produce as well as to buy but it is only ideal for cold drinks. For hot drinks you would probably need styrofoam cups as well so a mixture of using both plastic and styrofoam is probably my recommendation.

Paper and Plastic Recycling Can Save the World

"Please recycle" is a common phrase in almost all labels of plastic and paper products in the market. Manufacturers of plastic and paper strongly encourage consumers to get involved in paper recycling, as well as plastic recycling. But for one to recycle plastics, one has a lot to understand first. You see, there is a certain process to follow in waste recycling especially plastic products.

Plastics are one of the most difficult to recycle and before the recycling process can begin, all plastic materials have to be sorted first according to the Resin Identification Code. This will serve a guide for recyclers.

There are almost 50 different main groups of plastics, each containing many different varieties. The Resin Identification Code system was introduced to make the sorting of recyclable products easier and more universal.

This is the Resin Identification Code used for plastic materials.

Name of Polymer Abbreviation Common Uses When Recycled PET / PETE Polyethylene terephthalate Polyester fibre, soft drink bottles HDPE High density polyethylene Bottles, plastic carrier bags, recycling bins PVC / V Polyvinyl chloride Pipe, fencing, non-food bottles LDPE Low density polyethylene Plastic bags, containers, dispensing bottles PP Polypropylene Auto parts, industrial fibre PS Polystyrene Coffee cups, toys, video cassettes OTHER Other Plastics Various

Sorting plastics is expensive and time-consuming but this is essential in the recycling process. Despite the challenges, more and more plastics are being recycled every year. The amount of plastics that are recycled has increased since 1990. According to American Plastics Council, almost 1,800 U.S. businesses reclaim post-consumer plastics. Still, with this number, the United States only recycled about five percent of the plastics produced domestically.

Plastics are first collected from curbside recycling bins and drop-off locations. From there, they go to a material recovery facility where they are sorted and sent to a reclamation facility. At the reclamation facility, the plastic is inspected and washed. Next it is chopped into small flakes. The flakes are then placed in a flotation tank and then dried in a tumbler. The dried flakes are then placed in a costly extruder where they are melted. The melted plastic is sifted through a screen to remove any contaminants and then it is formed into strands. Finally, the strands are chopped into pellets and sold to manufacturers to make new products. This starts a new life for the recycled plastics. As technology continues to evolve, the cost of the recycling plastic process gradually decreases and hopefully, the amount of recycled plastics will increase. At the same time, consumers have become more aware of the effect of plastic wastes on the planet so they are reducing the use of plastic bottles and bags before it is too late.

We ourselves do our share at home. Why not start separating your plastic items from other waste materials so that at least you have done a little help in saving our planet? It’s not a big task but entails discipline.

Pint Glasses of the Future

A safer British pint glass is being developed by an agency called Design Bridge in an effort to crack the big problem of glasses being used in violent assaults. On behalf of the Design and Technology Alliance Against Crime, the Design Council has tasked a team of specialist designers to create an alternative pint glass to reduce the number of injuries from the 87,000 violent incidents involving glassings each year, which costs an estimated 100 Million Pounds in NHS, police and court costs year on year.

The appointed designers, Design Bridge, will produce a number of safer drinking vessels prototypes, which will be launched in December this year. The object is to not only to make a safer pint tumbler, but to ensure they are attractive to industry, manufacturers and consumers. Working with producers and the licensed trade, Design Bridge will seek to develop more than one solution, which could be taken up by licensees.

The project is part of the "Design Out Crime" initiative from the Home Office's Design and Technology Alliance Against Crime and the Design Council. The design council are a group of experts from the world of industry, design and law enforcement whose mandate is to bring about innovation and encourage others to "think crime" at the first stages of product development.

Design Out Crime help to develop solutions to a wide range of crime-related issues, particularly those which affect young people by developing design-led ideas to minimise the harm from alcohol related crime (fights in clubs and pubs), in Schools (reducing bullying, fighting and petty theft), with new products utilising innovations in technology which help make consumer electronics more crime-proof and in business by minimising retail theft.

Jeremy Myerson, Helen Hamlyn Professor of Design, Royal College of the Arts and Alliance member said: "Alcohol related crime takes up valuable police and NHS resources and causes unnecessary misery to thousands of people. The outcomes of the Design Out Crime project have the potential to not only reduce alcohol related violence in the UK but to also help make our communities safer places".

Nick Verebelyi of the Design Bridge said: "Our challenge is to build upon research the Design Council have established to develop creative solutions that increase safety by reducing the opportunity for the vessel to be used as a weapon, whilst taking account of operational challenges, and providing opportunities for enhanced consumer appeal and brand image".

Home office Minister Alan Campbell said: "Innovative design has played an important role in driving down overall crime by a third since 1997 tackling a range of crimes including theft, fraud and burglary with innovative and practical solutions to real problems. This project will see those same skills applied to the dangerous and costly issue of alcohol-related crime and I am confident that it will lead to similar successes"(1).

Prior to the next generation pint glass brief was created, Innovation RCA conducted research to develop insights into the "glassing" problem and to identify solutions in designing safer drinking vessels. The research was used as material in workshops attended by some of the United Kingdoms best product designers, material scientists, branding experts and industry marketers. These specialists met with major breweries, PR agencies, pub chain operators and trade organisations to understand any concerns.

There were also interviews with police, surgeons and victims of alcohol related violence, while bar staff and customers were recorded talking about their observations of drinking from real pint glasses versus plastic glass.

The insights gained into alcohol related violence were complemented by testing of standard pint glasses and plastic pint tumblers by the Materials and Design Exchange (MADE).

The results were used to create the "Next Generation Pint Glass" brief to the design and technology experts, providing them with the essential background knowledge to develop real innovative solutions to reduce alcohol related violence in the United Kingdom.

References:
1. Turney, Ewan. Search on for safer pub pint glass (2009).

Green Taxation?

Our government is saving us from the threat of "dangerous" disposable merchandise - with taxes!

Recently a law in France was passed to tax plastic cutlery to try to encourage consumers to buy more eco-friendly products, and Paris is planning to expand the measure to include several other items, the environment minister announced last week.

There are similar taxes on disposable products in Malta and closer to home in Ireland; the plastic carrier bag tax of 15 Eurocents per bag was introduced in 2002. In Britain we are starting to see a variety of stores charge for bags, or only offer "bags for life" at cash points or their Anya Hindmarch equivalents. Sainsburys have announced this week that they will not give carrier bags away at the tills and customers must request them.

There is apparently a law in some parts of Europe that states that companies serving food are required to lay a new table cloth (or serve food on a wipable table) after each meal. Restaurants in Spain use large amounts of disposable paper table cloths as this law would require the restaurants to either have an abundance of linen table covers or serve their meals on fast-food style wipable tables in order to meet their obligations. Not really the look most establishments would aim for (unless you run a KFC/Burger King et al).

In the UK we have some rules regarding disposable products which don't fit well with the apparent "green" policies of governments past and present. One such law is that recycled paper cannot be used to make items which come into direct contact with food. A sensible idea I think; you don't want to be eating your breakfast from a disposable plate which used to be bog roll. However many companies in UK, in order to be seen to be eco-friendly and 'doing their bit' are offering plates and Catering Supplies made from recycled material. But how you ask? Surely many people are falling ill from bum to mouth disease or something? Well no, what the companies are doing is laminating the top of the paper plates with plastic so the foodstuffs don't actually come into contact with the surface of the paper. Great idea?! No, bad idea. The product is now single use in the strongest sense of the word(s). These new plates cannot be recycled into anything and will need to go to landfill as the paper and plastic are fused together for all eternity.

Just because something is made from re-constituted material does not mean it is a "eco-friendly" product, attention to how the product is made and if the product can be recycled after use is most important. Every product Event Supplies sell can be recycled and many are made from recycled paper where the law allows, and they do let you know what the goods are made from. Beware of companies cashing in on the whole green hoopla at the moment with really not very environmentally sound products.

A common law and set of taxes for the whole of the EU may be the future with regard to disposable items such as paper plates, Paper Cups and Plastic Cups. One country taxing a particular disposable product heavily could mean governments in their quest to be seen to be doing the right thing will unwittingly close disposable manufacturing companies leaving thousands out of work.

I do wonder however, how the Government profiteering over anything disposable will save the world. People will simply pay more and we doubt all the money in the world can stop seas from rising and landfill sites from overflowing. Personally I like the plastic bag tax, this one works and fewer plastic bags are being used as a result and people still get their shopping home. Some items however, you cannot simply replace with products that are "for life". People need to be responsible for recycling; the onus should be on us at home and work.

Eco footprints stamping on good intentions

Shops large and small far and wide are pontificating to allabout how green they are and how many rainforests they are saving buy flogging their new "eco" products to us. Whole companies have sprung up dedicated solely to supplying us with green merchandise, telling us on how to live our lives, and by chance selling the eco products we must have in order to avoid destruction.

It is truly amazing just how many companies are singly handedly saving us from ourselves and our nasty consumerism, boo, hiss.

Trading on ones green concepts, particularly when there are none is pretty bad form methinks and I feel many shops are simply not thinking about the consequences of their actions when switching from one product to another, only caring about marketing themselves as a green, ethical company.

One of the most popular "eco" products to be marketed in this way are Poly Lactic Acid lined paper coffee cup offered by catering supplies firms, coffee chains and supermarkets.

Polylactide is a aliphatic polyester derived from "renewable resources" (I use the term loosely), such as corn starch (U.S.) or sugarcanes (rest of world). Although PLA has been around for a while, it has only been of commercial interest in recent years, in light of its biodegradability.

As well as being used to line the inside of paper cups instead of the plastic lining normally used PLA is in use in plastic cups, plastic cutlery, carrier bags, food packaging, all manner of catering disposables and even nappies.

These new "biodegradable" paper cups are now one of the most popular green products as we all try in our own little way to stop global warming.

One of the biggest problems associated with these new Poly Lactic Acid lined paper coffee cup being used at lots of stores and coffee chains all over the planet is that customers are thinking they will biodegrade in their trash when they need to be sent to composting facilities or put in your compost at home, planted individuallyand covered by nice warm compost. If these paper cups are simply trashed they decompose at the same rate as oil based plastic lined paper coffee cups, that is years and years

Unless individuals compost all their biodegradable cups at home (assuming they are aware they have been given one) there will now be two types of paper cups requiring sorting at waste reclamation centres whereas in the past all waste paper cups could be easily sent for recycling without having to separate them.

Moreover once these new paper cups find their way into normal recycling channels (and you cannot tell the difference) it will ruin the entire recycling batch as normal plastic lining on normal paper cups and the starch based natural lining on the biodegradable cups does not mix well. You get the oil on water scenario.

Most companies manufacturing, marketing or using these products also seem not to have thought about what was removed from the earth in order to grow crops to make this natural product. Like bio fuels fields once used for production of food is now being used for crops to grow alternatives to plastics and petrol. There are even reports of forests being felled in order to make space to grow the sugar cane plants. This contributes to increases in food prices, the result of which most will have noticed over the past 12 months. There will never be enough available space to fully change over from our dependence on plastics to enable us to move to growing this naturally produced alternative, everybody would starve.

On the subject of starving people one other factor to consider regarding these new  Poly Lactic Acid plastic products is that we have spent a long time giving subsidies to farmers in Africa to assist them create crops and stand on their own two feet. Many of the crops these farmers are harvesting are corn or sugarcane.

As we are now mass producing those same crops for Bio Fuel and alternatives to plastics, lowering the prices, plunging these people back into poverty.

There are alternatives that given a little more thought could do many of the jobs these companies hope to achieve through their use of Poly Lactic Acid lined or produced cups. Oxo-biodegradable Plastic (OBP's) for example are normal plastics such as polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS) and polyethylene (PE) to which is added a mixture (d2w additive) that accelerates the decomposition of the chemical structure of the material.

Oxo-biodegradable Plasticswill degrade, then biodegrade, on land or at sea, in the light or the dark, in heat or cold, at a pre-determined rate, leaving no fragments, giving off no methane and leaving no harmful residues.

The resultant broken down products are then amenable to conversion by micro-organisms, for which these products are food and also into carbon dioxide and water; thereby returning otherwise intractable plastics to the ecosystem.

These Oxo-biodegradable Plastics can now have a shelf life, pre-determined when manufactured Utilising oxo-biodegradable plastics does not prevent them from being recycled.

Sadly there are many more stories like this, such as the major burger house that dropped its plastic coffee stirrers and switched to wooden stirrers in an effort at greening their company. Out of fear of lawsuits from customers for getting wooden splinters in customers mouths with their wood stirrers they insisted that they are covered with gelatin (like your prescription pills). Adding this extra process to the production of the stirrers costs a lot of energy, to the point where the natural product becomes more energy intensive than simply using plastic. Another classic greening was the banks saving acres of rainforest by using green bank accounts which use paperless statements, an idea I learned about from a paper flyer and noticed advertised on billboard advertisements.

Plastics are not "evil" as many would have you think, reducing our dependence on it is a good idea however we cannot just replace all plastic with a seemingly greener alternative without considering all the repercussions, and definitely not just to be seen to be greening your company

Ceramic Cups vs Paper Cups

Many coffee chains all over the world are now offering price breaks if customers bring ceramic coffee cups instead of using the stores own paper cups.

Most are lauded for their commitment to "going green" but is there any proof that these changes will have the desired effect and minimise our negative effect on the earth?

Research from the early 1990s suggests that each time you clean a mug in the dishwasher, it takes about as much energy - and would probably produce as many emissions - as it takes simply to produce a new paper cup!

Gains in dishwasher efficiency since then may have changed the math a little, but if you wash your ceramic cup after every use, you could easily be talking hundreds of cups of coffee before your mug makes more sense than a daily dose of paper. Cleaning the mug by hand may not absolve you, either - although you can help your case by using cold water and be sparse with the fairy - detergents are pretty energy-intensive to make.

The argument is worse when you compare Ceramic Mugs with Plastic Glasses

Reverting to china would be an ethical no brainer were it not for a seminal piece of academic analysis in the early Nineties by Dr Martin Hocking, Reusable and Disposable Cups: an Energy-Based Evaluation. He concluded you'd need to use your ceramic Cup 1,006 times for it to break even (in energy terms) with its polystyrene competitor. This is largely because kilns are extraordinarily energy intensive, because using a dishwasher to wash the cup also uses energy, and because cups get broken. Plastic cups also had a reasonably good recycling infrastructure in place: the UK's Save a Cup programme saveacup.co.uk still collects millions of plastic glasses from vending machines.

It seems whether an individual or massive coffee house you cannot win sometimes, whatever we do we seem to leave rubbish, create more waste, or anger some groups with our actions. Who actually considers all of the above when all you actually want is a Mocha Frappuccino, and quick?

Recycling Statistics

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.

What are Paper Cups made from anyway..?

A Paper Cup is intended primarily as a disposable means to drink a single cup of liquid refreshment, to this end it is manufactured in such a way that it costs a bare minimum to produce and uses a minimum of resources.

Initially cups were waterproofed using a process of spinning a later of clay from the bottom of the cup, hence lining the innards of the vessel and forming a watertight seal, this however had obvious disadvantages. The liquid from these cups became contaminated and tasted of cardboard. The obvious progression from the process was to use wax instead to form the watertight seal in hot and cold drinks cups, however this was quickly phases out with advances in polyethylene. The usage of polyethylene (PE) and seam welding produces a watertight seal suitable for hot and cold drinks, and is the cheapest option in terms of manufacturing.

Paper Cups are made primarily from renewable resources, this basically equates to wood chip (95%) and secondary components such as the PE waterproof layering. As you will no doubt have realized, the almost complete usage of wood chip in the construction of the cups makes them highly recyclable and potentially very green, however it is easy to forget about the PE layering that forms the inner wall of the vessel. Because of this layer (which needs to be separated before any recycling can take place) there can be complications in schemes designed to prevent cups ending up in the landfill.

Welcome to our Blog!

The aim of this new blog is to provide a digest and social commentary of all that is new and controversial in the world of catering supplies. disposable tableware and paper cups have had a bad rap recently with the current trends of green policy and waste control, but is there actually more to this topic than meets the eye?

It is all very well suggesting that anything disposable is bad for the environment, but is the situation so black and white? Actually no, it is not. There are many additional factors that would impact this argument, such as the state of the county's recycling policy and manufacturing processes, however the simple truth is that actually a disposable item can be more "green" than a reusable one? How so? Let me explain. A disposable item is very cheap to produce, and requires a minimum of materials to make, it is manufactured en mass and designed for a single use. In contrast to this, let us think about a rigid tumbler designed to be reused many times. Far more energy goes into the production of these items and they draw far more natural resources and materials. With this difference we have highlighted the key weakness of the reusable item; it NEEDS to be reused many many times for it to even break even with the carbon footprint created by the disposable item.

Another key argument would be the recycling potential of these items. Because disposable items can be made of a minimum of materials, they are very easy to recycle and reuse (albeit not as food related items). A reusable container may seem like a sound environmental idea, but it turns out that when it becomes broken or discarded, it is not so easy to recycle afterall.

This is merely an introduction to the themes i intend to discuss in greater depth in this blog, hopefully opening peoples eyes to the media manipulation that is rife with so many companies these days. It turns out the whole topic is more about public appearance than actually saving the planet. Something of an inconvenient truth..?