Of Coffee, Flight Attendants, and Spaghetti Stirrers
This won’t exactly incite your flight attendant to deploy the emergency exit and slide to the tarmac, but next time you’re flying, pull out a travel mug when they offer coffee, tea or other drinkage. Why? Because that’s what you will do if you aspire to attain the status of green java guerrilla like Sarah Wilson-Jones.
“They looked at me kind of funny, but think of all of the cups they go through on one flight and for the hundreds of travelers every day,” Sarah says, while taking a break in one of her five Phoenix Coffee shops throughout Cleveland, Ohio.
When it comes to sustainable and affordable coffee and tea drinking, she and her husband and master roaster, Carl Jones, know the drill.
To enlist in this merry band of smart coffee drinkers, you must first arm yourself with a travel mug. And you must do whatever it takes to remember to carry it at all times. By doing so, you’ll do your part to cut back on waste. Think about it. One cup a day times countless days and years. And that’s just you.
Sarah’s stores – and hopefully the espresso slingers near you – offer a $.10 discount for mug bearers, and a $.10 upcharge for the mug-barren who request disposable, compostable cups. She also offers a $.25 discount for those who bring their own canister or reusable bag when purchasing their coffee beans or tea leaves.
Even if your favorite coffee haunt doesn’t offer discounts for being eco-friendly, packing a travel mug is still a smart practice. And don’t be shy, soldier. Start bugging your baristas to implement some of these savings and practices, too.
Now that you’ve signed up, here are a few more tactics for courageous coffee commandos. After all, earth-changing times call for aggressive coffee and tea drinking strategies:
? Use coffee or tea grounds as compost on your plants.
? Buy premium teas, especially green and white teas that can be infused twice or more before you do what? Right. Use them for compost.
? Make a giant ‘green impact’ by buying locally roasted Fair Trade or Rainforest Alliance coffee.
? Strongly encourage your shop to use washable ceramic mugs and glasses, if they don’t already. “They have a sink, don’t they?” Sarah quips.
? Just as strongly encourage your cappuccino carriers to make real spoons available for stirring to eliminate disposable stirrers. Sarah says she’s heard of one shop using uncooked linguine noodles as stirrers, which are at least compostable. And interesting. Washable spoons, however, save waste.
? If you can employ burlap bags for mulching cloth, art, kids crafts, three-legged races or other purposes, inquire if they keep the coffee bags at their roastery. Phoenix even gives the chaff that gets separated in the roasting process to a local farmer for compost.
Photo credit: Nevit Dilmen
Christopher Johnston has written for American Theatre, Cleveland, Continental, Crain’s Cleveland Business, Editor & Publisher, The Plain Dealer, Progressive Architecture and Urban Design, and Scientific American, among other publications. He is currently writing a biography of Frederick C. Crawford, founding chairman of TRW Inc. As an avocation, he is a playwright and director, and this December, his play APORKALYPSE! will premier at convergence-continuum theatre in Cleveland.
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