There probably aren’t many people who would turn down 50 bucks.
But lots are willing to waste it. Turns out, students who buy coffee in a disposable cup every day from EMU Food Services could save $50 a year if they brought a reusable mug instead.
Saving money isn’t the only benefit to avoiding disposable cups – they are not recyclable. Not only that, but putting the cups in recycling bins contaminates the materials that are.

University Housing and Catering last academic year distributed approximately 180,000 disposable coffee cups. EMU Food Services sells about 200,000 a year. EMU Food Services has made significant efforts to curb student waste, such as giving away and selling reusable mugs and offering a discount for students who bring their own. And while the consumption of paper cups has dropped 12 to 15 percent in the past two years, students continue to use them.
“We can’t do it without their help,” said Shelly Pruitt, manager of The Buzz Coffeehouse. “We can’t just provide the stuff for the people; they need to be involved.”
This year EMU Food Services began purchasing compostable cups – which are still not recyclable – but there is currently no composting program at the University. Within the next two weeks, though, two compost stations will be posted inside the EMU in a pilot program.
“Frankly, it’s not doing any of us any good until we can develop a program to quote-unquote ‘compost them,’” said John Costello, EMU Food Services director.
But unless students utilize the compost stations, the program will not last, warned Recycling Program Manager Karyn Kaplan.
Compostable cups differ from regular ones because in place of the interior plastic lining, compostable cups use the corn-based polylactic acid to prevent the cup from deteriorating under high heat.
University senior Gwyn Gilkeson was unaware the disposable cups are not recyclable, but uses her own mug anyway.
“It’s more cost-effective for me, and it’s better for the environment,” she said. Gilkeson acknowledged the University’s efforts to remedy these issues, but said students need to stop thinking about changing their ways and just commit. “It’s more important that (they) have (their) coffee every day than the environment will be OK in the long term.”
When EMU Food Services decided to switch to compostable coffee cups – a move that would have been impossible just a few years ago due to lack of interest – it drove up costs approximately 14 percent. Prices rose, but not enough to cover all the additional expenses.
EMU Food Services has also looked into reducing its environmental impact through other means. One method was purchasing compostable food containers. But to Costello’s dismay, the nutrition contents label uses an adhesive that cannot be composted, so the entire idea had to be abandoned.
“You’re trying to do the right thing, but they all have complications to them,” Costello said. “It’s a vexing problem.”
Kaplan, the recycling program manager, pointed out the many implications of continuous use of the coffee cups. The manufacturing process includes use of electricity, materials, transportation and labor.
“You’re reducing greenhouse gases by simply using a refillable cup every day,” said Kaplan.
A 2003 EMU waste audit found that 12 percent of the total waste volume was made up of coffee cups and jackets. An accompanying survey showed that about a quarter of patrons used refillable mugs when they purchase coffee, and about 47 percent were aware of vendor discounts for customers who provide a mug.
University senior Kelsey Buzzell, an employee at The Buzz, said there are more people using refillable mugs than there were two years ago, but “it seems like it’s always the same people bringing in their own cup.”
Buzzell’s co-worker, senior Carly Pelletier, recalled one customer who purchased a cup of water nearly every day for water at the price of 10 cents per-cup.
“I didn’t go into a nasty spiel about how she could save 365 cups a year,” Pelletier said. “But I could have.”
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