So you might have wondered: "Well should I be using

都想要生活的更環保一點

paper cups?" It's a good question, and it's one that we're going to look at in a bit more detail.

所以你可能有想過

The paper cup has become something of an icon of the coffee industry, and

我應該要使用紙杯嗎？

when the Americanized version of Italian coffee culture spread around the world and coffee shops became more like fast-food restaurants,

好問題！

coffee on-the-go really flourished. The old Italian model was really about taking time out of your day and going and having a coffee;

我們今天就要來討論這個話題

taking a break. But now it was all about coffee

關於紙杯的真相

anytime, anywhere. More than that paper

紙杯已經變成咖啡產業的一個指標

Cups are what allowed this new style of coffee to become financially viable

當美國版的義式咖啡文化風靡全球

Coffee shops couldn't survive if they just sold coffee to people sitting inside

咖啡店變得更像是速食連鎖店

Over time cups became expressions of brand and the cup that you held in your hand said something about who you were

外帶咖啡的風潮也跟著興起

There is however a problem

傳統的義式咖啡文化

These cups produce a staggering amount of waste tens of thousands of tons

其實重點是在忙碌的一天裡,挪出時間去咖啡店喝杯咖啡

What's confusing is that it seems like they can be recycled some cups even say so

休息一下

But if you put one into a recycling, bin you pretty much consign it to landfill. Here's the problem a paper

但現在卻是隨時隨地都要喝咖啡

Cup is made of more than just paper

紙杯更讓這種新的咖啡文化變成咖啡店重要的收入來源

In order to make it waterproof and to stop hot drinks spilling into your lap the inside of a paper

咖啡店如果只賣內用咖啡是沒辦法生存下去的

Cup is coated with a thin layer of plastic and in order to recycle the cup

隨著時間演變,紙杯也變成表現品牌的一個媒介

You'd have to separate that plastic from the paper and in the UK only three companies are currently able to do that right now

而你手上拿著的紙杯也隱約中代表著你的品味

How bad is the paper cup problem?

但紙杯其實是個很大的問題

Well reports say that we use about two and a half billion paper cups per year, which seems bad

紙杯的使用製造出很多的垃圾

But that is actually only about not 0.1% of total UK waste and only about not 0.7

非常非常多

Percent of total UK packaging waste in some ways not as bad as it looks

讓人很疑惑的是,紙杯不是可以回收嗎？

But definitely a problem, and these cups are also a very visible problem when they're left and littered

有的杯子上面也會這樣寫

Now in the UK the government is proposing what it's calling a lot a levy a 25 P charge on any takeaway

但如果你把紙杯丟入回收桶,其實就跟丟入掩埋場是一樣的

Cups this is off the back of supermarkets charging for single-use plastic bags data from retailers shows that just over half a billion

重點來了

Banks were used in the first six months after the charge was introduced a drop of around 90%

紙杯不完全只是紙做的

Now I'm not a fan of this proposal because I believe it's too high attacks. It's charged at the wrong time and

為了讓紙杯不漏水

It sort of treats coffee demanders inelastic, and I think in truth it would have a massive

不讓熱飲燙傷你大腿

negative impact on coffee shops

紙杯內側其實鋪了一層薄薄的塑膠淋膜

So let's look at some alternatives and the first and most obvious one would be the porcelain

如果要回收紙杯的話

Cup is this better well

你需要先把那層塑膠淋膜剝落下來

Obviously yes in 1994 a study was published by Hawking that looked at the number of times

在英國,只有三間公司有這個技術

You'd have to use a porcelain cup before it was better than a paper cup and it took into account the energy of

紙杯的問題有多嚴重呢？

Manufacture as well as things like how much energy it took to wash the cup each time you used it

研究指出,我們(應該是指英國而已）,每年使用25億個紙杯

And you'd need to use a cup like this at least 50 times

聽起來似乎很遭

That number goes up quite a lot depending on how it's washed if a dishwasher is inefficient or only

但那其實只佔了英國垃圾量大概0.1%

Half-full that numbered leaps up quite dramatically in fact his calculations showed that the energy it took to wash a porcelain cup

也只佔了包裝材料垃圾的0.7%而已

Was almost identical to the energy required to make a Styrofoam cup and then we have

所以其實這樣看起來似乎也沒有想像中的遭,但他確實也是個問題

Reusable cups now companies like KeepCup and others have really exploded in the last few years

而且這些杯子也是很顯而易見的問題

They're very very very popular and keep cup themselves say that you would need to use their cup

英國政府正在推行一個所謂拿鐵稅法案

15 times before it's better than a paper. Cup, which seems pretty doable however

也就是每使用一個外帶杯就徵收25毛英鎊

They're not without their drawbacks first

類似使用一次性塑膠袋時商家跟你多收錢的概念

There's often complain that customers hand them over still dirty from the usage before and expect them to clean it that's not OK

（新聞畫面） 資料顯示, 在收費政策實施後的前半年,總共使用了5億個塑膠袋

Secondly it can be a challenge for a coffee shop to fill appropriately a random sized reusable cup

使用量大概降低了90%

Sure some of these are demarcated at 8 or 12 ounces

我不是很喜歡這個法案

But some of them may not be do you only accept cups if they have accurate volumetric lines on them?

第一是我覺得這個稅金太高

How do you fill 8 ounces of liquid in a 10 or 12 or 13 ounce random reusable cup?

第二,實施的時間點也不對

annoying little questions for cafe to answer and then we have

最後,這法案假設了咖啡的需求是不會被影響的

Biodegradable x' now there's still not a ton of information out there about them. There are however a couple of concerns

但事實上我覺得這對咖啡店來說會有很大的負面影響

One the energy required to manufacture them is much higher and secondly they typically require specific

接下來我們來看看有什麼替代方案

Pathways of disposal in order to properly break down just throwing one into your garden compost won't necessarily mean

第一個就是陶瓷杯

It'll break down and naturally degrade so a little bit like paper

所以用陶瓷杯真的會比較好嗎？

Cups you need to dispose of them properly in order to have a lower environmental impact

當然

in summary our paper cups bad

在一份1994年Hocking發佈了一份研究顯示報告

Well yes

報告裡探討了你需要使用陶瓷杯幾次才會比使用紙杯等一次性容器更環保

But if all we're gonna do is switch our paper cups out for porcelain cups or reusable cups and not make any wider effort in

這份研究把製造陶瓷杯以及清洗陶瓷杯所消耗的資源都包括在裡面

our day-to-day lives

結論是你需要至少重複使用陶瓷杯50次

Then we're pretty much wasting our time

清洗杯子的方式也會讓這個數字更高

Maybe it should just be a symbol of a much wider effort that we make in our personal lives. It's a good start

如果你的洗碗機不夠有效率,或是半滿

We've got a lot more to do

這個數字會暴增