First of all, we're not trying to make you feel bad about that disposable coffee cup from your morning coffee run. With 44% of Americans drinking 2-3 cups of coffee a day, you're certainly not the only one grabbing coffee to-go. Now with that said, if you are picking up a coffee every morning, making the simple switch to a reusable coffee mug has the potential to make a big impact. Here are a few solid reasons to stop using disposable paper cups.
1. Many paper cups are not recyclable.
Less than 1% of paper cups wind up being recycled. This is because many paper cups are tightly lined with plastic and have leftover liquid inside. This makes it really hard to recycle these disposable cups, and they wind up being sent to a separate facility.
2. 20 million trees are cut down a year just to make paper cups.
Talk about a huge carbon footprint.
3. Other countries are making an effort to reduce this waste.
The United Kingdom is making efforts to add a 34 cent tax to paper cups, with the goal of discouraging people and businesses to use them. This is known as the Latte Levy and is also in an effort to invest in reprocessing facilities.
4. The number of paper cups that end up in landfills is in the billions.
The U.K. throws away 2.5 billion paper cups annually, but that's nothing compared to the United States. In the U.S. alone, an estimate of 60 billion disposable cups find their way to landfills every year.
Related: How Death Wish Coffee drinkers are saving the planet