One more cup of coffee?

A few days back I saw a huge pile of used paper cups at a tea stall near my office and started wondering... I'm sure all of you reading this know that we need to save paper and minimize the use of plastic and environmental impacts and what not. Most of us have been studying it every year in EVS classes in school. But we often miss out on how all of what we have studied and what we read and hear is connected to the simple aspects of our everyday lives.

When I saw the huge pile of disposable tea/coffee cups my first thought was whether they were made of plastic or paper. If they were made of plastic, I could only imagine how much plastic waste is created by these cups every day. And if they are made of paper.. well, I read up on it and it turns out that the cups are either made of plastic or they are plastic or wax coated paper cups. The real shocking thing about this is that millions of trees are cut down and billions of gallons of water are used every year to produce these cups. 

This is not fresh news ofcourse. We often read about certain things or know about certain facts but we are so used to our busy routines that we overlook how everything we read or hear applies to each of our lives. Obvious things like printing on both sides of a paper are more commonly implemented. But little things like minimizing use of disposable cups or straws or paper tissues often escape our attention. So this post is for all of those people like me who want to make a difference. Lets raise our mugs to no more paper cups at work. :)