Council resolution condemns disposable coffee cups
Monday, March 03, 2008 at 4:24 pm
- 2 Comments
As Minneapolis City Council Member Paul Ostrow observed this afternoon, using a committee meeting to debate break room sink policy might expose the City Council to “some amusing media coverage.” And here, we attempt to deliver:
The Minneapolis City Council’s Health, Energy and Environment committee passed a resolution (pdf) today that scolds council members to stop using disposable coffee cups just because they don’t want to do their dishes. Some highlights from the surprisingly tense discussion:
Council Member Scott Benson: “Normally we wouldn’t bring this before the committee. The leadership would just make a decision. But because there was so much complaining and ruckus amongst the council chambers about this idea, I thought fine, lets bring it in front of committee and people can openly and in public and on TV can explain why it is they want to purchase plastic, polystyrene or paper products.”
Council Member Robert Lilligren: “As Council leadership I’ve been involved in this discussion, and whatever, if this is the direction people want to go, that’s fine. It seems to me the origin of this whole discussion had more to do with who was doing dishes rather than who wasn’t, and that your (Benson’s) office, being very close to the City Council kitchen, is more affected by dishes piling up in the sink. I want to be clear why we’re doing this, which I think is kind of extreme. It has to do more with dissatisfaction with dishes sitting in the sink.”
Council Member Diane Hofstede: “I certainly can understand if we’re using our own cups, then we’re responsible for cleaning them, and I fully support that. I certainly do that at home. There’s no reason why I wouldn’t continue that. My issue mainly dealt with as we had guests who come into the office, and because we don’t have a sterilized way that I’m aware of, at least, to sterilize the existing cups … As we are having guests, how can we offer them a cup of coffee or a glass of water and not be injurous to their health?”
As I reported in a post earlier today, the City Council buys between 3,000 and 4,000 disposable coffee cups per year. The resolution is aimed at making the city more environmentally sustainable.
An interesting side note: Readers at Treehugger.com are debating an article from today’s UK Guardian newspaper that cites two studies questioning whether ceramic mugs are that much better for the environment than disposable cups.
2 Comments
Comment posted March 4, 2008 @ 12:18 am
Whose cup is half full, whose cup is half empty? This may be begging the question, but, why not let every council member supply their own tin cup? Let each concerned and unwashed styrofoam drinker carry the ‘alternative tin’ on a string around his/her neck and the question, who washes it, would become strictly a family affair rather than wasting City Council time debating the viability of the styrofoam cup…which like the proverbial cockroach in this recyclable society, will not decompose.
And to drift a bit furthur…3000-4000 foam cups? A familiar number that reminds me…very close to the latest toll of our military; our young men and women dying daily in Iraq because no one in Congress nor in this present administration has been able to stop a war that was so poorly conceived and questionably justified and yet still pursued. All those bodies are not recyclable. Who-washes-the-dishes has got to be a trivial pursuit. Think what could have been achieved if city councils across this nation had taken a stronger initiative where Congress and this administartion failed; defined an honest evaluation and demanded closure to this dumb war.
Comment posted March 3, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
Whose cup is half full, whose cup is half empty? This may be begging the question, but, why not let every council member supply their own tin cup? Let each concerned and unwashed styrofoam drinker carry the 'alternative tin' on a string around his/her neck and the question, who washes it, would become strictly a family affair rather than wasting City Council time debating the viability of the styrofoam cup…which like the proverbial cockroach in this recyclable society, will not decompose.
And to drift a bit furthur…3000-4000 foam cups? A familiar number that reminds me…very close to the latest toll of our military; our young men and women dying daily in Iraq because no one in Congress nor in this present administration has been able to stop a war that was so poorly conceived and questionably justified and yet still pursued. All those bodies are not recyclable. Who-washes-the-dishes has got to be a trivial pursuit. Think what could have been achieved if city councils across this nation had taken a stronger initiative where Congress and this administartion failed; defined an honest evaluation and demanded closure to this dumb war.
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