• German city pioneers reusable 'to go' coffee cups to curb the 2.8 mil dumped into landfills yearly
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[quote]The thought of 2.8 billion disposable coffee cups a year being dumped in landfill sites across Germany is enough to leave a bitter taste in the mouth of any consumer. With 320,000 "to go" coffees delivered over the country's counters every hour, according to the German environmental aid forum, the impact of this growing trend is extensive. To tackle the issue, the university city of Freiburg has come up with a pioneering scheme aimed at reducing waste. The "Freiburg Cup", made from dishwasher-proof plastic and obtained from cafes and bakeries for a deposit of one euro, can be reused hundreds of times ‒ or returned. The cups, which are provided by local councils, are washed in the cafes and bakeries that have signed up to the scheme before being reused or redistributed.[/quote] [url]http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38066528[/url]
Wouldn't this be counter-productive? Most people are just bound to toss their cups still, and now that these cups cannot be degraded into the environment thanks to being waterproof, you just created a far worse issue. :v:
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;51426480]Wouldn't this be counter-productive? Most people are just bound to toss their cups still, and now that these cups cannot be degraded into the environment thanks to being waterproof, you just created a far worse issue. :v:[/QUOTE] It's just because it costs 1 euro. Sort of like those "sturdier" plastic bags that every supermarket was forced to sell for 10 cents. My trash just costs 10 cents more now
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;51426480]Wouldn't this be counter-productive? Most people are just bound to toss their cups still, and now that these cups cannot be degraded into the environment thanks to being waterproof, you just created a far worse issue. :v:[/QUOTE] Hopefully the incentive of returning the cup for 1 euro encourages people to keep not toss them. Inevitably, a bit of everything that can be recycled will end up in a landfill. It's more a matter of lowering the amount more than eliminating it.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;51426493]Hopefully the incentive of returning the cup for 1 euro encourages people to keep not toss them. Inevitably, a bit of everything that can be recycled will end up in a landfill. It's more a matter of lowering the amount more than eliminating it.[/QUOTE] Heres a suggestion ive heard floating around, bio degradable cups enriched with pure oxygen bubbles... as the cup decomposes the oxygen is released allowing for very fast decomposing of not only the cup but also everything around it. biggest problem with landfills is that even biodegradable stuff stops decomposing once the oxygen is depleted deep inside the landfill.
I'd say that law should be put in place that all plastic that is recyclable must have a slug / sheet of ferrous metal in it. From there all plastic objects can be pulled out of the trash to be recycled. You could do the same putting slugs of iron on the bottom of any aluminium cans, it would have the added bonus of making them hard to knock over.
[QUOTE=ZpankR;51426491]It's just because it costs 1 euro. Sort of like those "sturdier" plastic bags that every supermarket was forced to sell for 10 cents. My trash just costs 10 cents more now[/QUOTE] You could at least try to comply with regulations meant to reduce plastic in landfills, you know
[QUOTE=Trebgarta;51427051]And how many billion dollars will this sugestion cost? Itd be cheaper to rent a bulldozer to move stuff around to let them breathe once a week[/QUOTE] well, since they already use a foaming agent to make the plastic lighter and have better heat isolation, simply replacing CO2 gass for pure oxygen or even just normal breathable air bubbles does a world of good for the decomposition process. We can assume the same hardware to get normal atmosphere in the plastics can be used to use pure oxygen. Air, even pure after all isn't that expensive [B] Lets do some maths[/B] NASA bought oxygen at 67 cents per gallon. A gallon of liquid oxygen weighs 4.322 kg, so they paid $0.16 per kg for liquid 99.8% pure rocket grade oxygen. I couldn't find the weights and densities of biodegradable foam, but lets use Styrofoam for cups assuming the weight and density would be comparable for cups. That weighs about 5 grams, 98% of its volume might be gas trapped in pockets, but the polystyrene weighs actually far more then normal atmosphere, being 1.04 g/cm3 while Styrofoam has a density of about 0.04g/cm3 in plastic cups, so the weight in air is almost negligible... but lets say 0.1 gram (its far less, but w/e) thats[B] 0.000016 $ per cup[/B] for using near-pure rocket grade oxygen instead of normal atmosphere or co2 [B]1 kg of liquid oxygen[/B] would be enough to produce [B]10.000 cups[/B] for the added price to normal production costs of those 10.000 cups of [B]$0.16[/B] so yes, the difference between a pallet of biodegradable foam cups using pure oxygen to boost decomposition of not just the cup covered in oxygen poor suffocating decomposing material, but also help decompose the surrounding material massively is at most [B]1 dollar for 62500 cups.[/B] Hiring the bulldozer once, and assuming you are the driver, assuming a trash heap of 100 cups per m³ (i feel that's quite liberal in favour of the dozer, since landfills would be filled with all sorts of junk and not just our cups) so lets say 625 m³ with 1m depth... (that's our 62500 cups / 100, for easy calculation, but also keeping the costs of the dozer down, since if it stacks too high it will have to do several 'runs' costing more fuel) A bulldozer can move the first "push" for as little as $0.50 per cubic metre, but by the third "push" (in the same line) it can be over $1.20 per metre, and more than 6 pushes in the one line can blow out to $5 per metre. Lets take the rough average, since none of these numbers and descriptions mean anything to me, so [B]a bulldozer costs $2.5 per metre³ earth (or landfill) moved[/B] * 625 = 1562$ on running cost of renting a bulldozer to do the work so for [B]$1 on extra cost in cups[/B], the dozer is [B]1562 dollar in cost[/B]. Not only are you off by a scale of a billion using massive roundings in your favour (0.1 gram of air has a volume of 77cm³ for example) your "cheaper alternative" is [B]1562 [/B]times more expensive. [B]You sir, are wrong.[/B] Sources, plus my handy chemistry pocket book for weights. [URL]http://www.uigi.com/o2_conv.html[/URL] [URL]http://www-pao.ksc.nasa.gov/kscpao/nasafact/ps/SSP.ps[/URL] [URL]http://footstoolearthmoving.com.au/when-your-project-needs-a-scraper.php[/URL]
[QUOTE=Blizzerd;51427604]interesting oxygen maths[/QUOTE] There's a slight problem with this oxygen kills the reaction for polystyrene, and CO2 isn't used for most styrofoam expansion. Pentanes are usually used as a solvent for expandable foam as opposed to CO2 since polystyrene isn't very soluble in CO2, and they can often recover the pentane as it's evaporated out of their reactors. I'm not certain, but I think the bacteria that eat styrene are also not very oxygen tolerant. I'd have to look that up, but it might be for polystyrene specifically O2 bubbles might impede biological decay. Still an interesting idea though. I think O2 in the materials would be a bad idea for the consumer, particularly in cases where you're concerned with how things taste or smell (like for beverages) due to the reactions possible. What might work better would be pumping O2 into the landfills in a more controlled manner. You could pump the O2 underground in the pit, accelerate the decay of the trash, collect some of the nutrients to feed some specialty algae to make O2 to pump underground and make whatever algae derived products you want. Less trash, less runoff, and you can make useful drugs, materials, or even food. Here's a diagram: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/FIAHogw.png[/IMG]
You're forgetting the homeless population will have a source of income (or anyone poor enough to dig through bins or collect) by collecting and returning them. Which is a big yes.
Just make it so people have to buy a cup and that no shitty carton cup is going to be provided in the shop, kablamo problem solved. If you don't want to carry a reusable cup around, just sit and enjoy the coffee with a nice ceramic cup. Any coffee that goes into a disposable coffee cup is probably disgusting anyway. People really crave that caffeine fix.
[QUOTE=Linderella;51427971]You're forgetting the homeless population will have a source of income (or anyone poor enough to dig through bins or collect) by collecting and returning them. Which is a big yes.[/QUOTE] Which is interesting to think about, because we have that exact system in place here in Denmark but for the plastic bottles used for all sodas and just today there's been a discussion (from a couple of politicians) about whether or not this invites eastern european to attempt to live off of that, but resulting in a very meager standard of living, eventually resulting in more crime since they can't sustain a decent living just from that. The proposed solution was to make the bottles not pay out cash, but instead force you to spend it as credit in the store where you delivered the plastic bottles. I'm not saying I agree or anything, but it's an interesting discussion none the less.
[QUOTE=Bertie;51428004]Just make it so people have to buy a cup and that no shitty carton cup is going to be provided in the shop, kablamo problem solved. If you don't want to carry a reusable cup around, just sit and enjoy the coffee with a nice ceramic cup. Any coffee that goes into a disposable coffee cup is probably disgusting anyway. People really crave that caffeine fix.[/QUOTE] what on earth are you talking about do you really think that the second coffee goes into a disposable cup, that coffee is garbage? You do realize very nice coffee joints and cafe's basically base their business on the idea that people buy coffee in said disposable cups? It's not just Starbucks, that's how mom and pop shops here do it as well I'm genuinely confused because I thought [B]I[/B] was a fucking coffee snob. But nope
[QUOTE=1legmidget;51427793]There's a slight problem with this oxygen kills the reaction for polystyrene, and CO2 isn't used for most styrofoam expansion. Pentanes are usually used as a solvent for expandable foam as opposed to CO2 since polystyrene isn't very soluble in CO2, and they can often recover the pentane as it's evaporated out of their reactors. I'm not certain, but I think the bacteria that eat styrene are also not very oxygen tolerant. I'd have to look that up, but it might be for polystyrene specifically O2 bubbles might impede biological decay. Still an interesting idea though. I think O2 in the materials would be a bad idea for the consumer, particularly in cases where you're concerned with how things taste or smell (like for beverages) due to the reactions possible. What might work better would be pumping O2 into the landfills in a more controlled manner. You could pump the O2 underground in the pit, accelerate the decay of the trash, collect some of the nutrients to feed some specialty algae to make O2 to pump underground and make whatever algae derived products you want. Less trash, less runoff, and you can make useful drugs, materials, or even food. Here's a diagram: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/FIAHogw.png[/IMG][/QUOTE] The point was to use biodegradable starch polymers, not polystyrene, but i did not find density and such data on them, so i used the ones from polystyrene since it should be comparable. Also it was just an idea, i can only imagine what happens if the cup is lit on fire for example... (solid rocket fuel anyone? its basically the same stuff as in one of those solid rocket boosters with oxigen as oxidiser) I actually think landfills are already pumped with oxygen to make stuff decompose faster, or at least ive read about people thinking about it.
[QUOTE=Blizzerd;51428846]The point was to use biodegradable starch polymers, not polystyrene, but i did not find density and such data on them, so i used the ones from polystyrene since it should be comparable. Also it was just an idea, i can only imagine what happens if the cup is lit on fire for example... (solid rocket fuel anyone? its basically the same stuff as in one of those solid rocket boosters with oxigen as oxidiser) I actually think landfills are already pumped with oxygen to make stuff decompose faster, or at least ive read about people thinking about it.[/QUOTE] I think another problem with your proposal that you're not only paying for the oxygen but also changing the manufacturing process. This would mean extra costs just to get started producing these oxygen rich cups and most companies would not be very open to this.
[QUOTE=Capsup;51428516]Which is interesting to think about, because we have that exact system in place here in Denmark but for the plastic bottles used for all sodas and just today there's been a discussion (from a couple of politicians) about whether or not this invites eastern european to attempt to live off of that, but resulting in a very meager standard of living, eventually resulting in more crime since they can't sustain a decent living just from that. The proposed solution was to make the bottles not pay out cash, but instead force you to spend it as credit in the store where you delivered the plastic bottles. I'm not saying I agree or anything, but it's an interesting discussion none the less.[/QUOTE] I guess the easiest way would be to just check whether that's the case before legislating anything. Over here I'm pretty sure it's mostly local people supplementing their pensions, but I haven't actually read a report on the matter. [editline]26th November 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Blizzerd;51428846][...] Also it was just an idea, i can only imagine what happens if the cup is lit on fire for example... (solid rocket fuel anyone? its basically the same stuff as in one of those solid rocket boosters with oxigen as oxidiser) [...][/QUOTE] Rocket fuel seems to use a lot more volatile compounds, but I agree that it probably would be a bit of a fire hazard.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;51426480]Wouldn't this be counter-productive? Most people are just bound to toss their cups still, and now that these cups cannot be degraded into the environment thanks to being waterproof, you just created a far worse issue. :v:[/QUOTE] Every tincan, plastic and glass bottle in german costs you up to 25cent extra. You get the money back if you return them. Since we introduced this, the littering in the cities have decreased IMMENSELY.
Tbh make everything bio-degradable and I'm happy
[QUOTE=Blizzerd;51428846]The point was to use biodegradable starch polymers, not polystyrene, but i did not find density and such data on them, so i used the ones from polystyrene since it should be comparable. Also it was just an idea, i can only imagine what happens if the cup is lit on fire for example... (solid rocket fuel anyone? its basically the same stuff as in one of those solid rocket boosters with oxigen as oxidiser) I actually think landfills are already pumped with oxygen to make stuff decompose faster, or at least ive read about people thinking about it.[/QUOTE] Polymer density data is often difficult to find. Starch polymers with oxygen cavitations/inclusions would be interesting. I'm not sure how large these bubbles would have to be in order to be effective and you might start running into concerns about the structural integrity of the object before you'd end up with any sort of decomposition benefit in landfills. The pyro in me is excited with the prospect of burning an object like that [QUOTE=J!NX;51430088]Tbh make everything bio-degradable and I'm happy[/QUOTE] Everything is bio-degradable with the right organism. The real trick is finding or designing an organism that can utilize these resources to produce something we actually want. Of course, simply reusing materials would be cheaper, but I want my terpenoid producing microorganisms damn it. For uh, reasons.
[QUOTE=JoeSkylynx;51426480]Wouldn't this be counter-productive? Most people are just bound to toss their cups still, and now that these cups cannot be degraded into the environment thanks to being waterproof, you just created a far worse issue. :v:[/QUOTE] From the article: [quote]Why aren't paper coffee cups recyclable? The average use-time of a disposable cup is short ‒ about 15 minutes ‒ and takeaway drinks often also include plastic lids and straws. The takeout cups issued at global coffee giants such as Starbucks, Caffe Nero and Costa are currently almost impossible to recycle and contamination is a major cause of concern. For obvious reasons the cups have to be waterproof. To achieve this the card is fused with polyethylene, a material that cannot easily be separated in a standard recycling mill. The cups, which are not made from recycled material to begin with, are designed with a thin seam of card inside which comes into contact with the hot drink. As such they have to be made from virgin paper pulp.[/quote] Basically having a plastic cup that's reusable indefinitely and may even be more easily recycled (not sure about that) > paper cups coated with a layer of plastic that can't be recycled nor will easily biodegrade I've personally just taken to bringing a travel thermos around for coffee/ice water/soda and dish washing it.
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