Author: Sarah Spinuzzi
If anyone has ever ordered a coffee in the Green Bean, the Marketplace or the Cooler, one has probably realized that the Eco-Product compostable cups compost instantly in one’s hand. Suddenly, one finds that his or her bright green lid no longer stays on the cup, the cup is leaking at the seam and there is a strange corn residue floating at the top of his or her drink.
These are small inconveniences when one considers that these lids could be biodegraded instead of sitting in the earth’s landfills. Unfortunately, there are no compost trash bins anywhere on campus. That means that all of the inconveniences of the Eco-Product coffee cups do not actually aid any environmental aim.
Additionally, in order to avoid having one’s tasty beverage drip all over one’s hand one probably has to use two cups instead of one. This means that those super environmentally friendly 100 percent compostable cups actually just add another cup to every landfill to make up for the inefficiency of the product — unless, of course, one carries the cup to a compost facility. Without a separate trash bin devoted to these environmentally friendly service items, the Eco-Product coffee cups are no more environmentally friendly than plastic or paper cups because they cannot be recycled.
One ought to consider where his or her cup is going after it has served its purpose. Throwing a cup in a recycling bin does not qualify as a daily good deed. According to the product website www.ecoproducts.com, the corn product used to make the cups is not recyclable.
Now assume that the cup was thrown in a regular trash bin. The cup (or cups, if the first one failed to do its job properly) has gone into a plastic bag surrounded by other man-made products where it will continue to fill up a landfill. Apply this concept to the compostable forks, knives and spoons that tend to melt in hot food. These products that fail to serve their purpose also fail to help the environment.
Most students at Occidental are very aware of the amount of waste they produce and generally try to recycle and do their part in helping the environment, but some of the products the school chooses to use just do not make sense. Often, they do more harm to the environment than good.
The cold beverage cups are made from a corn product called polylactic acid or PLA. Anyone familiar with the corn industry, or even the food industry in general, already knows that corn crops pose an environmental issue of their own.
Corporate owned farms grow enormous corn crops that are subsidized by the government. Corn products are used to make fuel, high-fructose corn syrup, feed cows (that should be grazing on grass) and now make compostable products. Corn crops are destructive to the soil when they are grown on the same plot year after year, but farmers find that growing corn is so cheap and can be used for so many things that they destroy the soil anyway.
Additionally, the massive amount of chemical pesticides used to grow corn contributes to chemical contamination of water supplies. Even if the compostable cups do not directly contribute to the harmful chemicals in the soil, the corn that they are made of does. Corn products like the Eco-Products used on campus cause as many environmental issues as petroleum — it just depends what resource one values more.
Perhaps the Eco-Products used on campus would actually help the environment if the school had compost facility trash bins, but it does not. If the eco-friendly products used on campus were composted, there would be grounds to call them “green.”
These products are simply a smoke screen to make students feel as if the disposable products are actually helping to protect the environment. Students should start asking if these Eco-Products are really better than plastic cold cups or paper hot cups which are usually recyclable. After all, a Starbucks cup doesn’t fall apart in one’s hand or allow one’s $4.50 latte to drip on his clothes.
Sarah Spinuzzi is a sophomore philosophy major. She can be reached at spinuzzi@oxy.edu
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