6 November 2008 - 17:31Ban the Coffee Cup #2: The City of Toronto vs. Tim Horton’s
In Toronto, this is the issue that can’t be put to bed.
Must be all that caffeine.
The City of Toronto now says it plans to ban paper coffee cups sold with plastic lids by the end of 2009. Recyclers don’t want mixed paper and plastic because one contaminates the other.
Tim Horton’s, the reigning king of coffee in Canada (colonizing approximately 80% of the national marketplace), is “incredibly dismayed” with the City of Toronto. No surprise that it doesn’t like the idea of a ban. It would be pretty “inconvenient” for them to redesign a cup for the purposes of one city.
But the coffee giant has its own plan. They just announced that they will institute paper cup recycling systems in their stores across Ontario.
Environmentally-sound move? Hmm. Token gesture? More like it. Forgive me if I think Tim Horton’s wants to hang onto that disposable coffee cup with plastic lid combo as long as possible. This from the company who tells its employees to ask you if you want an extra paper cup so you can “roll up the rim to win” even when you bring your own mug.
And really, what good will in-store recycling do? Tim Hortons does not create a coffeehouse experience where you drink your beverage on site, they are all about take-out. i.e. take out of the store to drink and dispose.
Rather than vowing to change the City of Toronto’s plans, I got an idea for you Timmy. How about a “bring your own mug to win” contest? Then we’ll all be winners.
photo by brad pearson
9 Comments | Tags: Conscientious Consumer, Food, Waste
07 Nov 2008 - 14:19
I like your BYOC idea – and I’m totally onboard!
Those disposable cups that Tim Horton’s use are environmentally damaging in two respects. The cups require a lot of natural resources and energy during their production. On the other side, the cups also create landfill waste and emit greenhouse gases.
Recycling disposable cups helps cut down on waste, but it does nothing to save trees, water, and energy used during the production process. Tim Horton’s solution only looks at half the problem!
11 Nov 2008 - 14:29
You ARE totally onboard. Thanks for sharing the link to sustainability is sexy. It’s refreshing to see an org devoted to the issue of disposable cups.
13 Nov 2008 - 15:40
i wrote to Timmies many times about how stupid it is to sell extra large and large, but not medium, travel mugs. i BEGGED them to start making medium-sized travel mugs. always got the automated environment-related bs response. i don’t go there anymore, and used to be an addict.
the karma police will get them.
09 Dec 2008 - 11:20
Hi,
It’s the thoughtless consumers we need to get to. If they start demanding change, Timmy’s will comply. I have another issue. Drive-thrus are idling hotbeds. Our air is also being polluted. Easiest approach is to stop buying their products and refuse to use the drive thru – but let them know why. Oh, and then we can talk fair trade coffee….
09 Dec 2008 - 16:42
Hey thanks for the comment. you are absolutely right about there being many environmental problems associated with fast-food culture, like drive-throughs. Did you see this post of mine on what one guy from Markham is doing about it?
http://www.ecoactionteams.ca/pub/blog/?p=18
01 Apr 2009 - 23:47
Hey!!!
Im a SAIT student Im doing a project on reducing Tim Hortons environmental impact.
We got through many solutions, but the easiest one is the cups themselves. My group and I found a solution to all this waste, btw not only does it increase the garbage in landfills, but those paper cups are made with a polystyrene film which can take up to 50-75 years to fully decompose.
Decompse is the key word to this, how aout bio-degradable?
=)
03 Apr 2009 - 15:20
thanks ellery! biodegradable cups are a better idea. it makes sense that governments help set up policies to limit the product options so that retailers can only buy biodegradable cups to sell their coffee in. that would be so much better than styrofoam or polystyrene film as you say…
18 Nov 2009 - 16:23
I think that tim hortons are just destroying our eco system it was very foolish of them to state that we are changing our cups for just 1 city well they are wrong as can be.
02 Mar 2010 - 14:05
Does anyone realize the health concerns of people bringing cups from home and having staff handle them. In this germ conscious society, I think we would be terrified to have someone hand a disgusting, bacteria, and virus latent cup to someone who serves possibly thousands of people a day. This would set up a health nightmare. Yes, we hand them money, but paper, and metal are poor incubators of bacteria and viruses, but think of the possibilities for growth in a cup that has water and sugar a virus or bacterium could survive for months and thrive in that environment just waiting for someone to touch it and pass it on. Have we all forgotten Typhoid Marry just 70 short years later? I think I’ll stick to my disposable cups thank you.