How many people today grab a takeaway coffee cup from the local cafe to drink on the go? We don’t know, but the number must be enormous.. Most every one of the above have a plastic top that will last 100s of years. Some cafes still use plastic cups that last a similar time. Is 10 minutes of coffee worth 100s of years of trash?
These items can be seen littering our gutters and on our streets all over the place. If they were all cardboard, they would still be littered, but they would, at least, be gone in a short time.
They do not need to be made of plastic.
On the way home from the gym last week, a distance of about 1 km (1/2 mile), I counted the items of plastic litter on the curb as I walked. In that short distance I counted 63 pieces of plastic litter. Plastic drink bottles, bottle tops, candy wrappers, plastic film, polystyrene fragments etc. That seemed to be a lot to me. I guess it is a generational thing. Our parents would have been horrified to see that amount, whereas it seems to go unnoticed by our youth of today. In another 20 years how many pieces will there be on this stretch, -- 200? What will today’s youth think of that new amount then when they are older? Will their children be so readily accepting of a higher amount of litter? 
UK supermarket to eliminate all to-go coffee cups from stores
Posted on April 23, 2018 by DrRossH in Plastic Limiting Regulations
While others go recyclable, Waitrose decides to cut them out all together.
Source: UK supermarket to eliminate all to-go coffee cups from stores
By the Fall of 2018, Waitrose will eliminate all single use, disposable coffee cups from its stores. Here’s how they explain what’s going down:
We have committed to removing all takeaway disposable coffee cups from our shops by autumn 2018. As myWaitrose members you will continue to have the option to enjoy a free tea or coffee from your shop’s self-serve machine as a thank you for shopping with us. But in the coming weeks we will be asking you to bring in your own reusable cup, rather than being offered a disposable coffee cup when you go through the checkout.
The cups will initially be removed in nine test branches only, starting this month.
Of course, the ultimate solution to single-use plastics is either to ban them, or tax them so punitively that the cost becomes prohibitive. After all, we’re all paying the cost in terms of environmental degradation, so why not shift that payment to the source of the problem?
But still, institutional moves like this are making a real difference—both in the amount of plastic being consumed, and in the broader cultural debate about what is and isn’t acceptable as a society.
And for that, I think we can thank Waitrose heartily.
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