52 Ways to Reduce Your Environmental Footprint – 5. Takeaway Drinks

Takeaway drinks. If ever there was a poster child for unsustainable choices, I think takeaway drinks would win, hands down. 

Let’s have a quick look at some of biggest culprits:

  1. Water bottles
    • Global – 50 billion bottles a year used
    • USA – 30 billion bottles a year used
    • <20% recycled
    • Never decomposes, not ever!
  2. Coffee cups
    • Global – 200 billion cups a year used
    • USA – 50 billion cups a year used
    • 0% recycled (No that is not an error, coffee cups are not recyclable)
    • 20 million trees required
  3. Other drinks in plastic cups (Bubble tea, Juice, Soft Drinks)
    • Global – 300 billion cups a year used
    • Taiwan – 1.5 billion cups a year used
    • <20% recycled
  4. Soft Drinks and Sports drinks bottles
    • Too many to count!
  5. Coffee Pods
    • More than there are stars in the Universe

So instead of reading about numbers so big it makes your eyes water, how about making a pledge to reduce your consumption.

Pledge 1 – Refuse to buy anything in a plastic bottle or cup. There are many alternatives:

  • Make your own bubble tea cups  and take them with you
  • Take your own water bottle out with you
  • Choose aluminium cans or paper cartons over plastic bottles
  • Drink beer on tap instead of imported beer or in a beer in glass bottle
  • Take your own coffee cups with you
  • Slow down a bit and enjoy life, then drink at the restaurant and use their cups instead of taking away all the time

Pledge 2 – This is the important one! Tell people about the issues with disposable drinks containers and give let them know about the solutions.

 


There are so many ways in which we can help reduce our environmental footprint but with so much going on it is hard sometimes to remember. Rather than remember, the best way is to form a habit and the best way to form a habit is by utilising the 3 R’s:

  1. Reminder (the trigger that initiates the behavior)
  2. Routine (the behavior itself; the action you take)
  3. Reward (the benefit you gain from doing the behavior)

Each week, for 52 weeks, we will post a new idea to help you reduce your waste and work towards a cleaner less polluted lifestyle. Hopefully, by the end, some of the idea’s will become habitual and stick with you forever. Consider this to be your gift to the world.

#reducewaste #environmentalfootprint #onebrownplanet