Here’s another video from Kleen Kanteen, maker of stainless steel reusable cups & tumblers, about Americans’ addiction to disposables.
These days, especially in the US, we just assume our stuff will be packaged in to-go wrapping so we can go go go! Disposables are everywhere. And they’re cheap or free.
Of course they would not be free if we decided to bill ourselves for the cost of the environmental destruction they cause.
And maybe if they weren’t everywhere, we wouldn’t use them by default. This video, and The Cup Espresso Café in Boulder where it was filmed, are brilliant in that they bring customers face to face with their assumptions and make them question whether they really need that paper cup. Many realize that they do not!
Reusable cups in the 1954 film La Banda degli Onesti
Of course, this is what the original coffee culture in Italy was like. You go up to the bar of a café, order your espresso or 6-oz cappuccino. They give it to you almost immediately and if you want sugar, you take a spoonful from a big sugar bowl on the bar. You stand there and take it as a shot, slam it back down on the saucer, and leave. If you want to sit down at a table, that costs extra. But now we’re using cafés as our mobile offices and drinking coffee from to-go cups even when we’re sitting in the café.
Do reusable cups rule at your café?
This just gets my goat. I walk into a café and order a short latté for here. They give it to me in a to-go cup anyway. Grr! I sit down and see everyone drinking from paper cups. Do Starbucks-type places even have real mugs anymore?
I’d like to compile a list of cafés that are real champions of actual dishware and reusable mugs. I have a few ideas, but please comment with your faves (from any city!) and I’ll take a look.
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