who killed the electric coffeepot?

[topaz]

Can anyone hazard an informed guess about how the carbon cost of drinking coffee out of a paper cup every day stacks up against the cost of, say, breaking a ceramic mug once a year?

Purely hypothetically, of course.

Comments

[ayse.livejournal.com]

My main concern about aluminium and food is with acid foods, which tend to etch it. Coffee and tea being acid, I'm not keen on using alumnium for coffee cups.

And given my experience as a LEED AP and doing green design since before it was fashionable, I'm kind of burning out on new materials, myself. And there is no way that buying a new product will ever save anything anywhere.

[dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com]

The concern I hear most often with aluminium is about Alzheimer's Disease. (http://ndt.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/17/suppl_2/17) I don't personally worry about it in water bottles, but I think your caution about acidic liquids is probably sensible! I always thought steel had a higher manufacturing cost than aluminium, but it looks like I actually made that up.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

There's a HUGE causation/correlation problem with the association between Alzheimer's and aluminum.

Since buying something new is environmentally a poor choice, what about buying a used mug?