A medley of urban gardening, experimental cooking, family medicine, and my life.

4th March 2008

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Erica bought me this ceramic mug for my birthday, a mock rendition of the disposable coffee cups sold by all the new york breakfast carts. It came to mind today as I was reading Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man’s  blog about questioning whether a reusable ceramic cup is really better than a disposable cup. According to the Guardian, you have to use 1000 polystyrene cups before you equal the impact of manufacture of one ceramic cup. Colin, however, says this argument is dangerously flawed, and sites his recent conversation with Juliet Schor, expert on production-and-consumption and co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream. He insists that if the ceramic cup already exists and is sitting on your shelf, then using even one polystyrene cup has more impact because it has to be thrown away and replaced. It’s an interesting dialogue about disposable culture. (This blog-post is dedicated whole heartedly to Ben. We’ve been in a heated debate about this for years - almost as heated an argument as this one.)

Erica bought me this ceramic mug for my birthday, a mock rendition of the disposable coffee cups sold by all the new york breakfast carts. It came to mind today as I was reading Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man’s  blog about questioning whether a reusable ceramic cup is really better than a disposable cup. According to the Guardian, you have to use 1000 polystyrene cups before you equal the impact of manufacture of one ceramic cup. Colin, however, says this argument is dangerously flawed, and sites his recent conversation with Juliet Schor, expert on production-and-consumption and co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream. He insists that if the ceramic cup already exists and is sitting on your shelf, then using even one polystyrene cup has more impact because it has to be thrown away and replaced. It’s an interesting dialogue about disposable culture. (This blog-post is dedicated whole heartedly to Ben. We’ve been in a heated debate about this for years - almost as heated an argument as this one.)

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