On travel mugs | By Umbra Fisk | Grist | Ask Umbra

On travel mugs

13 Nov 2006

Got questions about the environment? Ask Umbra.

Dear Umbra,

I am putting together a fundraiser for the Environmental Law Association at the George Washington University Law School, whereby I intend to sell coffee mugs. If you saw all the paper cups that get thrown away at my school you would be in tears (at least two trips to Starbucks a day: double cups and a hand cozy ... scary). My question is, should I get plastic (I know you hate plastic), metal (almost all metal coffee mugs have some plastic on them), or is there some jazzy enviro travel mug that hasn't crossed my radar?

Katie
Washington, D.C.

Ask Umbra continues below

ADVERTISING POLICY

Dearest Katie,

As a matter of fact, an odd travel mug did cross my radar recently. It's made of 100 percent United States-grown corn plastic, with a little claim for compostability.

Good beyond the last drop.

Photo: iStockphoto

The addition of that mug gives us four choices of durable fundraising mug: corn plastic, petroleum plastic, stainless steel, and ceramic. We must evaluate both sales appeal to law students and environmental soundness. On the sales front we're looking for aesthetics, portability, and durability. Does the mug suggest "future Supreme Court clerk"? On the environment front, we look, as always, for a lifecycle analysis to answer the question easily -- but when that does not appear, we fumble about with available information and inference.

Sales-wise, we can easily knock out the ceramic mug. Primero, no travel lid; secundo, heavy; tertio, looks like home mug, will be forgotten there; finito. As for the two plastics, I think they are the same from a sales perspective: no one is going to know the corn mug is made of corn unless you tell them, and it looks like petroleum plastic. My aesthetic bias is toward stainless steel, and I think I am not alone. Plastic mugs look cheap and scratch easily. They don't say Prestigious Law School to me; they say Earth Day Event, or -- worse for your purposes -- Quik-E Mart.

Which leads us to my foregone eco-conclusion, which is that you should go with stainless steel. I'll fumble about with materials information in a minute, but I give sales appeal such emphasis because the primary goal here is to reduce disposable cup use by selling gobs of long-lived travel mugs. If the mugs don't sell, you don't meet this goal at the outset. (Your next step, of course, is to get fair-trade, organic coffee into those mugs, but one thing at a time.)

The corny mug.

Photo: kelseypromo.com

Working backward from the reducing-disposables goal, I don't think plastics are as long-lived as stainless. They become scratched and almost pilly, start to smell odd, and finally one day, justly dubious of their cleanliness and certain of their scruffiness, we dump them. Stainless, on the other hand, will hold the sleek, successful lawyer look over time.

Stainless steel is a fairly decent, durable material. Large volumes of stainless steel are reclaimed and reprocessed; globally, stainless steel contains an average of 60 percent recycled content. Virgin stainless, which may well be in travel mugs, is very high in "embodied energy," meaning its manufacture uses many resources and is likely worse than the manufacture of plastics (corn or petro). However, duration of end-use can make up for the embodied energy costs, i.e., a stainless cup used daily for five years probably beats a plastic cup used for six months. I haven't seen the direct smackdown numbers, but for an explication of this concept you can read about paper vs. plastic vs. ceramic. I think we all would use a stainless-steel mug longer than a plastic one. Not to mention far longer than a paper cup, leading us back to the great idea you have in the first place.

I wouldn't knock Starbucks cups, by the way. The company has actually worked quite hard to reduce virgin paper use by developing the beverage sleeve, encouraging cup reuse, and establishing supply chains of food-grade, recycled-paper pulp to achieve 10 percent recycled content in their cups. Huzzah to them.

Shockingly,
Umbra

Yours is to wonder why, hers is to answer (or try). Please send Umbra any nagging question pertaining to the environment -- but first check out her FAQs!

The claims made in this column may not reflect the views of this magazine. Neither the magazine nor the author guarantees that any advice contained in this column is wise or safe. Please use this column at your own risk.

Umbra Fisk is Grist Research Associate II, Hardcover and Periodicals Unit, floors 2B-4B.

Comments: (22 comments)

You are not logged in. Thus, you cannot post a comment. If you have a Gristmill account, log in below. If you don't have a Gristmill account, well, by all means go make one! Meet you back here in five.

On Corn Mugs and Cupholders

I recently purchased (as gifts) some travel mugs made from corn plastic. These have printing on them saying they are made from corn -- and they have narrow bottoms so they can fit into cupholders. In our car-dependent society, being cupholder-ready is a big plus for a mug. I got 'em from ecoproducts.com. Another source for similar mugs is recycledproducts.com; they might even custom-print on them for you.

Another note: The corn mugs I bought can only be hand-washed. My wife mistakenly put one in the dishwashwer and it changed shape, but is still usable.

by downtoearth at 10:36 AM on 13 Nov 2006

Microwave

Steel mugs are not microwaveable.

by Deanna624 at 10:39 AM on 13 Nov 2006

A Mug's Life

I agree. Steel or metal cannot be used in a microwave, so I would not purchase a travel mug made with metal.

Tom Trevathan

by tomtrevathan at 10:46 AM on 13 Nov 2006
[ Parent ]

Great idea!

I too am appalled at the use of paper & styrofoam cups every single day for tea, coffee, and water. And it's not just where I work. It's everywhere. I would love to organize something to get reusable cups into the hands of everyone. Ideas?

by epistola at 10:48 AM on 13 Nov 2006

a vote for ceramic

I'm sorry Umbra gave up on ceramic mugs so quickly! A tall skinny ceramic mug will not get confused with regular short fat home coffee mugs, and I've seen a number of small, plastic (granted it's yucky, but small) tops that fit into ceramic mugs. They are heavy, but dishwasher and microwave friendly. And they strike me as environmentally friendly, though that I can't promise.

Cathy

by cathschuy at 11:05 AM on 13 Nov 2006

Not all SS mugs created equal

I support Umbra's conclusion on stainless steel, but buyer beware. Many SS mugs have a plastic liner, which is joined to the SS exterior with a seam. This seam eventually deteriorates and opens up, then you get fluids leaking between the outer and inner layers either from washing the mug or just sloppy drinking. At that point you have a biohazard and the mug has to be tossed.

The best SS mug is a double-layer mug with either a pressure-formed or welded construction, so that both the inside and outside are SS -- with no seams in between. These create a sealed, insulated space between the layers that keeps drinks extra-toasty.

I have one such mug that is probably 10 years old and it still looks new.

Also, watch out for cheap-out lids. The best have a screw top with a neoprene-type seal rather than rubber, which wears out a lot faster.

by swampthing at 11:08 AM on 13 Nov 2006

Charbucks, neoprene, etc.

Please distinguish between a "neoprene-type seal" and a "rubber" one, as they'd appear to be the same thing.

Ceramic mugs: I wonder about lead glazing, especially on ones from other countries.

Is microwavability really an issue, given the mention of trips to Charbucks for coffee? Those who spend $8/day on $1 of coffee aren't going to be tre gauche by reheating their status symbol in something as pedestrian as a microwave.

Lastly, Charbucks does indeed deserve your ire for their support of rodeos.

by anthony11 at 12:36 PM on 13 Nov 2006

another vote for ceramic

I agree with Cathy, Umbra was too hastily dismissive. (And also, if I were a hard-charging law student, I might resent the cruel stereotypes -- but that is OK, those guys had better get used to it, and anyway they can afford it.) To me at least, the material of the vessel matters a great deal.

Stainless Steel and plastic are simply unsatisfactory. Yes, I have drunk out of such vessels, and No, they are not impossible; but they are hardly what I would prefer.

With tea, I like glass. That can be tricky, if the water has just been boiling; but the Russians manage it well enough, by holding the glass in a silver cradle.

With coffee, I like ceramic. I have no brilliant ideas as to how a ceramic mug is supposed to go in a car. But that is what engineers are for.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 1:17 PM on 13 Nov 2006

Mugs

i do not know if this is allowed but ----- reusablebags.com offers stainless steel mugs [siggs] and provides a nice explanation as to why we should use this expensive mugs & water bottles.

by grcausey at 2:05 PM on 13 Nov 2006

Mugs

recycled products.com (Weisenbach Printing) has several different types of corn plastic mugs. I just oredered some for a conference and they were sturdy and had the 100% corn plastic message printed right on the mug.

by shastakia at 8:03 AM on 14 Nov 2006

Immaterial

I submit that the material of the mug is less relevant to whether or not students actually remember to bring it with them to the Evil Empire (aka Starbucks) for their twice-daily caffeine injection.

I suspect that, if you could convince the local EE to offer a 10% (or higher!) discount on coffee if people bring in their own mug, that would motivate the starving-student set.

Perhaps EE already has a policy like this, I don't know. But I believe the point is that to make a reusable mug truly sustainable is to get people to reuse it. A little incentive goes a long way....

by kmp at 9:23 AM on 14 Nov 2006

How to clean your stainless steel mugs.

No, the answer is not soap and water.

Its baking soda. Take hot water, spoonful of baking soda (and maybe a little bit of soap) and pour them all in your mug. Put your coffee cup seal on the mug. Shake vigorously. Remove lid and pour the baking soda water over your lid, scrubbing away any dried on mocha. If needed (because you let your mug sit at your desk for three days, half full), wipe out any excess gunk, and re-shake with water and baking soda.

This method not only makes your coffee cup sparkling clean, but also removes the "funk" (that not-so-good smell that can permeate even the cleanest stainless steel cups) that sometimes accumulates in reusable cups, regardless of how many times you use soap and water. Just be sure to thoroughly rinse the cup before placing another mocha in it.

by SarahInSeattle at 9:51 AM on 14 Nov 2006

lead glaze

The regulations on lead glaze are pretty strict in the US. I doubt there's any way you could buy a mug glazed with lead glaze; lead-glazed items have those little stickers that say they're "for decorative use only". It more or less killed the importers of Mexican dinnerware, because even though a lot of their stuff was lead-free, they couldn't afford to have it certified, which is how I know (I used to work in a Mexican importer's store).

I saw some throughly awesome mugs at Target the other day. They were completely leakproof when shut, and they had a built-in loop with a carabiner. My big complaint about travel mugs is, they still spill if they get turned upside down, and I need an extra hand to carry them (which are both problems with disposables, too, but it's nice to in some way have non-disposables more convenient to offset the inconvenience of washing them, especially since most people can't wash dishes at work). These mugs were stainless inside and out, with a plastic lid. i can't find them on the website, though. Sigh.

How did I go, in less than a decade, from not knowing how to use a computer to expecting every piece of information in the known world to make an appearance on the web? But that's a whole 'nother story...

by willa at 2:19 PM on 14 Nov 2006

ABS strangely unsatisfactory

One plastic that in theory would be as long-lived as stainless would be ABS, the stuff of rapids-crashing canoes. But my Starbucks ABS mugs have had a curiously short life, for the most part. In fact, one tall model that fit well into a car's cupholder rarely lasted a year before cracking on the outside or losing part of the handle.

Of course, this is an anecdotal observation; shoddy manufacturing, rather than the material, could have been the problem. A shorter, bulkier ABS model (not so good for the cupholder, sadly) has lasted a lot longer.

Likewise, if corn plastic is not dishwasher safe, I doubt that it will hold up long in a microwave, either.

Why nuking a travel mug would be a high priority for most is a puzzle. I nuke ceramics at home or the office -- aren't travelers for in-between?

There is probably not one satisfactory answer to the paper cup consumption problem -- if something cuts your paper consumption, go with it.

by Senior dog at 3:05 PM on 14 Nov 2006

if it just a question of a caffeine fix,

then why not hook up a re-usable IV, and have done with it? Throw a bit of opium into the recipe, too, and you would be doing a charitable deed, supporting the poor farmers of Afghanistan.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 3:15 PM on 14 Nov 2006

Another vote for cermic

The Jomondo line of mugs from Highwave includes the original wide base Hotjo and a newer narrow base Autotray that fits in a cup holder. Both come with a silicone drink through top to prevent spills. All are dishwasher and microwave safe. My Hotjo is rated for 24 Oz. but holds more like 28. It is sort of charcoal gray-black, which means you can't see the stains. Most people can't drink 28 Oz of coffee before it cools. Lucky for me, I like it hot or cold.

by cjon at 4:44 AM on 15 Nov 2006

cermic = ceramic

need more coffee!

by cjon at 4:45 AM on 15 Nov 2006
[ Parent ]

Coffee Mugs

There is a nasty surprise that can await those who do not carefully check out their stainless steel coffee mugs ahead of time. The Scalded Lip Syndrome. Some ss mugs have rims that heat up from the hot coffee, leading to a very unpleasant surprise upon the first sip. Sort of like the heated fork trick of that very sick SNL skit.

My travel mug choice is also determined by my favorite recreational activity, wilderness canoe tripping. For this - Ok bring me up on charges before environmental court - I choose plastic. And if it gets all scratched up and funky, well after a few days in the boons, I am scratched up and funky, so is my canoe and so we are all quite compatible. Also the weight factor is critical for someone on the downhill slope of middle age, a factor in my decision to get a decidedly non-EC kevlar canoe. So arrest me!

Randy Cunningham

Randy Cunningham

by randino at 6:05 AM on 15 Nov 2006

Coffee mugs

Who cares? The amount of petroleum used to make all the travel mugs you will use in a life time amounts to 0.0001% of the petroleum used to power your car, air conditioner, heat your home, etc., etc. Don't forget the nickel used in stainless steel is "reasonable anticipated to be a human carcinogen."

by rmainer at 10:54 AM on 15 Nov 2006

using them

I agree with kmp. We're having a great discussion if we're us, environmentally-minded freaks who have voluminous discussions regarding travel mugs, but what we need is to convince people outside our set that travel mugs are for everyone's benefit.

Observations:

Students like to pretend they are poor, even if they spend 8 bucks on coffee everyday.
Many people are embarrassed or too distracted to break out a travel mug at Starbucks and ask for it to be filled instead of a paper cup.
The amount of travel mugs out there already is INSANE. I have at least twelve from various events I have attended, each of which have a whole set of pros and cons for everyday use.

My Conclusions:

Especially around a college, the most important thing is to make travel mugs cost effective and in your face by asking local coffee shops, whether evil or good, to give a discount or incentive for using travel mugs, and for employees to ask people if they have brought a travel mug before reaching for double-layered paper cups.
Make sure we spread around the baking soda cure (Thanks SarahinSeattle) for smelly mugs.
Stop making even more dang free travel mugs for people to trash. (Unless they have been requested by people intending to use them.)

I used to think that if I cared about one thing, I would have to care about everything. Now I know I do.

by lyrivyzy at 1:28 PM on 19 Nov 2006

Energy Analysis

Just note that the report Umbra links to only takes into account energy when analysing the various materials - it does not take into account nasty chemicals generated in the production process, waste issues, the likelihood of recycling or biodegradability.

by missym at 5:04 AM on 11 May 2007

Microwave

I absolutely agree that steel or metal cannot be used in a microwave, this the reason I don not use them.
By the way, speaking about travel, I've recently found a nice blog about beautiful French place, France travel and tourism. I advice you to visit it and to visit France as well:)

by Tajfun at 12:52 AM on 27 Jul 2007

The comments of Grist users reflect the opinions of those individuals only, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Grist, its staff, its board members, their psychotherapists, or their aestheticians. Got it?