An interesting public musing over at the Surly Brewing site: They’ve found corn-based, biodegradable disposable cups that they’d like to start using for events. Great, right? Unfortunately, the corn is grown in the US… shipped to China… and then shipped back as cups. Net environmental gain: dubious.
Surly’s Environmental Conundrum
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As opposed to normal plastic cups which come from imported oil?
Perhaps they could consider paper with a high level of post-consumer content. Or perhaps reusable plastic cups.
Have them give Eureka a call. They’re used to dealing with waste issues at events.
Here’s an Ingeo cup that’s made in the US (or so they claim). About 13 cents per pint-sized cup.
http://www.brenmarco.com/category/eco-friendly/cold_drink_cups
Here’s a biodegradable/compostable corn-based cup which the retailer claims is made in the United States. http://bit.ly/HN7nN
Surly could also look at: http://www.f-k.com. Their compostable cups appear to be made in USA from corn grown in USA.