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Reusable vs. Disposable Cups

ilea.org — "This classic life-cycle energy analysis was performed by University of Victoria professor of chemistry Martin B. Hocking. Hocking compared three types of reusable drinking cups (ceramic, glass and reusable plastic) to two types of disposable cups (paper and polystyrene foam)."

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kevinrose 1 year 148 days ago, made popular 1 year 148 days ago

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SpectralSounds, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31Ive been waiting for this question to be answered scientifically. Finally, Ill be able to get some sleep tonight.
- radu79, on 10/12/2007, -3/+32That article addresses only the energy required to manufacture/was them.
  However, you have to also factor the cost of the materials as well, and the cost of the waste disposal (transport, storage, etc.).
  
  So better just use the reusable cups, in the long run.
  
  P.S. And I don't wash all the cups in the dishwasher. For example, if I want to reuse a cup with the same liquid, I just refill it. Or just wash it in the sink a little.
- nonpareil, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14This analysis is fatally flawed, as there is no mention anywhere of drinking out of a straw.
- dogstar0125, on 10/12/2007, -5/+25Yes, it's a flawed analysis. Factor in the 242 MJ required to drive your Suburban to the store to buy a new bag of disposable cups and you'll get a very different result.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18Don't forget the cost trucking 'em to the store, and the cost of the dump truck swinging by your house on friday morning, either.
- mattsidesinger, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21I can't leave awesome looking teeth marks in my ceramic coffee cup.
- mcnappy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@dogstar0125
  
  I may have to pass up on that Hummer I was looking at buying. =
- drewhenson, on 10/12/2007, -5/+4screw disposable cups, hooray for energy inefficiency!
- spidoman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Disposable cups = classy. I hear the ladies love the plastic throw away champagne glasses.
neiltc13, on 10/12/2007, -5/+20Wow, this is old. I think now we'll have more of a consideration for the energy used than ever before.

Did this only get to the homepage because it was submitted by user "kevinrose"? One must wonder how well a link with clearly stated age would perform if any other user submitted it.
- nsjoker, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3Well it's an interesting article nonetheless. I've never seen it before and I found it informative. It's something trivial everybody can relate to.
- radu79, on 10/12/2007, -8/+5Well, he is the founder, so he has the right to 'cheat' a little bit, every once in a while, no? :)
- Bob042, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Maybe it's an experiment. See if a 13 year old, possibly flawed, boring one page story can be frontpaged and stay there, just because Kevin Rose dugg it.
fjvwing, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18Um, says nothing about the cost of disposal and degradation of environment.
- donaldgelman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I thought the same thing. Surely disposal should be included in the life cycle of a cup. Even then, it becomes more complicated because of recycling . . . . Personally I marked it as inaccurate because it is misleading, but to each is their own I guess.
hdtvdust, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7So...people use a dishwasher to wash ONE cup?
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The estimate in TFA is divided by the number of cups you can wash at once -- .18 megajoules is only enough energy to warm a single pint of water to boiling -- clearly far less than the amount of energy a whole dishwasher cycle takes.
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4For further reference, an "Energy star" washer uses at most 1.5 kWh per cycle (including water heater energy usage).
  
  http://energystar.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/energystar.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2538
  
  That's 5.4 megajoules. 30 times the estimate in TFA.
  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=1.33+kWh+in+Joules&btnG=Google+Search
- hdtvdust, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0It still really doesn't matter. No one uses the dishwasher for cups alone. PEopel aer using hte dishwasher ANYWAY, so it is not using up any extra energy. Most people don't fill up a dishwasher to the point of not being able to add anything else, and even if it is full, the very design of dishwashers makes it so that you can add a plate, or whatever, in the place of a cup. Hence, you are not using any additional energy to wash that cup. At least a lot of the time.
  
  (Plus, what about hte people who use a drinkinggalss, and since iti s so easy to wash by hand, don't use a dishwasher anyway?
  
  Anyway you look at it, this is a dumb article, and would have been buried by now if it wasn't for the submitter.
ffejrey, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1We also have more energy efficient dishwashers now...and I'm sure manufacturing is different then 13 years ago...
InfiniteNothing, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Obvious solution: Don't wash your cups every time you use them :)
I'm not sure specific energy is an appropriate figure to use.
Yes, landfill use is an issue.
jcaino, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6great, wonderfull - foam cups cost less energy to use.

but what about when you throw it away? at least paper will bio-degrade in a reasonable amount of time.
Fourmiii, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3What an idiotic study !!
I found this excerpt in another article : "most people are surprised that ILEA recommends plastic bags at the grocery store, for instance"
.. but that article only compares plastic bags to paper bags .. against a 1990 background!! The article doesn't even suggest using a conventional backpack or even using no bag (pockets, anyone??).
Truly pathetic..
- ffejrey, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3Who brings a backpack to the store?
- AdebisiTheGamer, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2I reuse my plastic grocery bags around 10 to 20 times each before they are to stretched to continue using them.
  
  But, when I think about it, I could likely reuse paper bags several times as well, if I was careful with them. And they do not carry the landfill issues plastic bags do. You can recycle them in your blue box, or you can recycle them in your compost heap.
  
  As far as who brings a backpack to the store? I do when I ride my bike. I also keep all my grocery bags in my car trunk so I can reuse them and never have to worry about forgetting them at home.
  
  So while I still do use plastic bags, I use about 1 tenth to 1 twentyth of most shoppers. And its not like it takes any effort. Unpack the groceries, put the bags back into your car trunk.
  
  So people can argue about what is truly greener, paper or plastic bags, but there is no excuse for not reusing the bags you do use, several times each.
- Fourmiii, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Q: Who brings a backpack to the store ?
  A: Mindful people who plan on doing their grocery !
  
  Truly a simple habit that could save a lot..
  The world uses between 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags a year, according to reusablebags.com.
  
  Some places around the world tax the use of plastic bags (japan, ireland, among others..) and some even make it illegal to use them !!
  Imagine facing 7-10 years in jail for carrying your already-over-wrapped goods in plastic bags. That would probably make you bring a backpack to the grocery store!
- merreborn, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4"Who brings a backpack to the store?"
  
  Clearly, you've never been to Santa Cruz. Those damn hippies love their reusable containers.
  
  Hell, the whole Whole Foods chain offers a small discount if you bring your own reusable bag in to carry your groceries home.
- ffejrey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Well around here they give you the bag free of charge so I guess I never thought about bringing my own backpack....and no places offer discount if you have your own reusable bag. Now that I think of it it would be a good idea...especially if plastic bags were against the law. And we are hippie free as well.
- DrewBlood, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ffejrey
  
  I use canvas, and not just Whole Foods gives discounts for it. We just go to a regular supermarket and get one.
scronline, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Except for the fact that foam is non-biodegradable and non-recyclable I could go with that. Everything else on the list can either be recycled or biodegradable at least to a some extent. Let's not discount that many people (myself included) don't need, use, nor want a dishwasher. Washing by hand has worked for centuries. Why should I use up energy resources just so I don't have to spend 5-10 minutes washing up after my meals? Not to mention dishes are usually cleaner when done by hand and you don't end up with all those "extra" chemicals in the sewer water just so you can have "spot free" dishes or whatever.
- WaterJake, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11) Washing by hand is more inefficient than a dishwasher according to a footnote at this website.
  2) Polystyrene is recyclable, it just isn't recycled in curbside programs.
  3) There is no landfill problem, we have tons of landfill space, much of which is tapped as a source of free power (methane gas).
gormenghast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5He's only considering 1/2 the cycle here..
drake77, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3What about plastic disposable cups? I use red solo cups almost exclusively.
nathanwalker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1This is the perfect damned article for digg. Its about something that really doesnt matter, but it does it very meticulously and scientifically. Dugg haha
BeyondGoodNEvil, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Why does it assume a cup is washed every ***** time in the dishwasher?? I rinse a cup in the sink like 3 times a day and only wash it with soap 1x a day. Dishwashers aren't necessary, if you're vigilant and minimize what you actually USE. No need for more than 3 forks, spoons, knives per person. Just ***** wash it and put it in the rack to dry. Even 2 of each per person should suffice! 1 perfect, well-designed, thick, glass 16-20 ounce tall cup is all that's needed. Maybe 2 plates. Vigilant!
simplehiker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Hey Kevin Rose dugg it... it has to be true!!111 Monkey see monkey digg.
Marked as Inaccurate.
akkr24, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0this is greattttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1All those medieval peasants drinking from ceramic cups were ruining the environment!
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gr00vy, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Ok, this study is fundamentally flawed.
If you notice, the energy usuage of each use of the paper cup and the foam cup do not go up in number of uses. Which means either the same cup is used over and over again and never cleaned, or the graph is wrong for the one use cups.

What you should see is that the graph of the single use cups goes up, fairly linearly, this dramatically changes the cost/energy equivelance between the two items. Meaning that probably it is worthwhile to use reusuable cups when they are used less than 50 times.

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. This is probably just a damn lie.
- derekbalsam, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4It's your comprehension of graphs and math that is fundamentally flawed.
  
  The vertical axis is "energy per use". It wouldn't go up :per usefor the disposable cups because the total energy is divided by the number of uses, giving "per use".
- derekbalsam, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2Digg me down, I double commented.
CollegeRuled, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Indeed, in situations where cups are likely to be lost or broken and thus have a short average lifetime, disposable cups are the preferred option.

NO ***** KIDDING.
Ebulating, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Washing a cup in a dishwasher after every single use is complete overkill. Since cups are usually filled with liquids I've found that they don't really even need soap to get them clean just rinse them with water and a bottle brush. That would seriously tip the balance in favor of reusable cups.
- xcoastie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Or reusing the disposable cups a few times before throwing them away would tip the balance in favor of the disposable cups. Especially the red plastic cups, they are durable and can be rinsed out between uses. Then instead of running the dishwasher just toss them.
TailGunner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Right. So, instead of using more of my local hydroelectric energy, I should save the environment by contributing more paper and foam to the landfills! Makes perfect sense.
systemghost, on 10/12/2007, -3/+1Science is ***** awesome. Suck on that hippies. Styro all the way!
siszam, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I still have glasses I bought ten years ago. No way disposable glasses can beat that.
SopMan99, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0So who really puts ONE cup in the dishwasher? The analysis makes mathematical referrence to the amount of energy it takes, assuming a certain amount of dish washing liquid. I personally wait until I fill the dishwasher before I run it.
naturewoman56, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Are they kidding? Do they think everyone has a dishwasher? As scientists, perhaps they should factor in the the energy-inefficiency of hauling truckloads of styrofoam cups to a landfill, as opposed to reusing glasses. It's sure my preference. Hey, some of us don't have microwaves, either (by choice).
shaf140, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0This study was done way back in 1994, here is a blog post that is more recent.
http://www.genexe.com/?p=296
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Reusable vs. Disposable Cups

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