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It?s just one cup. Is it? |
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by Jeewon Shin | 19-08-2018 23:43
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We use paper products every day. Schools use paper to send out school news to students and their families. Adults use paper to print out their works. A most common use of paper would be paper cups. Many of us use paper cups at least once a day. Everyone uses paper cups when they buy drinks from a café or drink water. Even though we know using paper cups is harmful to the environment, we just can?t stop using it.
According to the France Power Cooperation?s research in 2008, 0.9m2 of nature disappears to create a single paper cup. Resources from ?Solidarity for Resource Circulation? say that the usage of paper cups in Korea is about 70,215 tons, or 13.5 billion cups, every year. That means 53 million 840 thousand trees are cut down and 12,656 liters of water is being wasted annually. The waste that is produced during this process is about 114,758.
(photo = https://blog.naver.com/wa3706/150170862282)
Not to mention of huge environmental impact from making them, 11g of CO2 is created for every paper cup. If you calculate all the numbers together, you will get the result of 148,500 tons of CO2 every year just from paper cups. That is approximately the amount of CO2 produced by a quite big factory. These numbers were how the situation was 4 years ago. What is worse is that laws that were preventing people from using paper cups have been abolished and because of that the usage of paper cups has been sky-rocketing every year. Statistics say that the number of paper cups that are used by people has increased 4 times over just 5 years. The numbers would just keep increasing and get bigger.
(photo = https://ebcoffees.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/starbucks-paper-cups-how-to-get-rid-of/)
Is a paper cup worth this much? We can use our bottles to drink beverages. One small action can bring huge impact on the environment. Let?s start using bottles instead of paper cups and save the Earth together. |
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3 Comments
Hello Jeewon, thanks for pointing out this issue.
We have banned the use of plastic cups in cafes (except take outs) but still, we have to remember that lots of paper cups are still being trashed. As Joon Ho mentor mentioned with public transportation banning the carry of these disposal cups, more of these are being dumped on the road. If only more individuals would carry their own bottle, things could be a lot more improved.
Thanks for the report!
Posted 22-08-2018 21:47
Hello Jeewon, always nice citation and topic choice for your report.
As you may have seen for a lot of time during this summer, many passerbys involuntarily leave their plastic cups or paper cups near bus stops and other public places.
Of course, following the current public transportation laws, we cannot handle coffee in plastic cups when we take on buses, but it is true that many of us 'literally' just throw them away on the road.
Handling one's own unique tumbler or bottle will change such social phenomena.
Thanks for your report :)
Posted 21-08-2018 21:38
This is very interesting. In other places of the world, plastic products are being banned so that we can use paper products.
What about we have a replacement system where for every tree cut two trees are planted.
Posted 20-08-2018 02:48