Energy Project

I love me some coffee. I make a cup every morning to drink as I get ready, sometimes I buy another cup in one of those drive through stands on the way to work, some days I buy an americano at the Dimond Espresso Stand. The point is not where I buy the coffee, but what I drink the coffee out of.

Questions:
How many paper coffee cups do I throw away a year? What resources are used to produce each cup? How would using my refillable thermos change these figures?

I am not the first to address this issue, there are many websites out there urging coffee lovers to bring their own mug, not only to save the environment, but to save money too! Even the coffee giant, Starbucks has gotten involved.

For this project, I will keep track of how many times I buy coffee out of a paper cup in one month. Using that information I will calculate how many paper cups I use per year. To find out what resources are used to make all the cups I use in a year I will use data from the paper calculator of the Environmental Defense Organization. I will then compare this data to the amount of resources it takes to make a stainless steel coffee thermos.