Bring a reusable mug for hot drinks and a bottle for cold drinks.
Welcome to Week 22 of 50 Ways to Reduce Your Waste Line. Last week we talked about bringing your own reusable plates and bowls when you take out food from the food services outlets on campus. This week, we ask you to bring your own reusable containers for beverages. Bringing your own container will eliminate potentially 3 items of cup waste (cup, lid and sleeve) for you each day depending on how much you drink!
One Thing You Can Do:
Purchase a reusable beverage container that will last you for years! Glass and stainless steel are great options that are less harmful to produce than plastics (Recycle Bank, 2016 & Northrop, 2015)), and you don’t have to worry about chemicals being leached into your drinks including BPA which disrupts the body’s hormone production (Beach, 2017).
Additional Information:
Global News published an article in 2016 written by Keith Leslie, entitled Too many water bottles ending up in Ontario landfills: environmentalists, stating “The Council of Canadians, a non-profit social action organization, said bottled water is almost 2,000 times more energy intensive to produce than tap water, and questioned the industry’s recycling claims.”
CBC New published an article in 2016 entitled Coffee cups among many items you actually can’t recycle, city says, stating “In 2010, Canadians used an estimated 1.5 billion disposable coffee cups, equivalent to more than half a million trees.”
