Avoiding Ceramic Styrofoam

Type in styrofoam cups or coffee mugs in google news and you find numerous blurbs about how such and such a business is going green by getting rid of styrofoam cups and going with something more reusable. It makes sense too, if we think about keeping a certain mug as our favorite and washing it diligently after each cup of tea, saving the earth from hordes of white waste...

It's kind of surprising, however, that a styrofoam cup is, in construction, and in one use or so, a lesser contributer to the carbon footprint in energy expension. The above mentioned ceramic mug takes much more to produce. It will be washed many times, quite often in hot water, which takes energy (and electricity if in a dishwasher), quite often with soap (which increases the amount of time it must be in the hot water so as to get the suds off). In comparison we have the styrofoam cup, easier to make, easy to throw away--but then here is where the trouble begins--over the long haul the throwing out of styrofoam cup after styrofoam cup undoes what is gained by easier production, hauling, and disposal... Indeed, hordes of white waste result.

Carbonrally.com suggests the challenge of choosing a long-term mug, making sure to carry it about so that it can be of use, and using the quick cold-water rinse for most washing occasions. In such a fashion, the cermic mug can truly win out on the minimal addition to the carbon footprint. Our trouble is, we tend too often to treat the ceramic mug a bit like the styrofoam cup.