12/08: JavaVino
Sign up to receive GreenPlate eNews, discounts, and event announcements in your inbox.
Note: The links shown below will not work.
PAPER OR PLASTIC?
The answer should be neither. Carry your own bags, bring your own coffee mugs, and use your own designer EcoUsable water bottles!
Otherwise, the question is complicated as one must consider the extraction and processing costs, the energy required to produce and transport each, the capacity of bags, recycling rates and long-term impacts to the environment.
The Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment states, "In assessing the energy used to produce a bag, all elements are considered. Energy used in transportation, electricity, fuel extraction and processing, and the energy within the feedstock are all converted into energy units, in this case kilojoules (kJ). "Paper bags use high amounts of wood, petroleum, and coal. ... The total amount of energy used [to produce] a single paper bag is 1,680 kJ. "The feedstock materials in plastic bags are natural gas and petroleum. The energy used for two plastic bags is 1,470 kJ. Based on the above numbers, production of paper bags is measured to be 23% less efficient than plastic bags. However, the comparison becomes fuzzy when recycling rates are thrown in, as people more readily reuse paper bags. The final postulation quickly favors paper when long-term costs of plastic, including toxicity, longevity, and effects on wildlife, are considered.
Still the best answer to the often-posed question Paper vs. Plastic is definitely neither. Keep your own foldable shopping bags with you at all times.
Featured Restaurant: JavaVino
Steve Franklin and Heddy Kuhl, owners of JavaVino: Coffee and Wine House, located at 579 N. Highland Avenue in Poncy Highlands are committed to sustainability.
GreenPlate: How are you sustainable?
STEVE: At JavaVino, we sell coffee from Selva Negra in Nicaragua. It is recognized as one of the world's most sustainable coffee farms, and it is Heddy's family farm.
GP: What about Plastics?
STEVE: From the very first, we decided not to use plastic stir sticks and we always offer mugs for people having their coffee here. Right now, we are wrapping our to go orders in paper and cardboard boxes. We'd like to find even more bio-degradable alternatives. While the top of the to go coffee cups are plastic, we are going to start educating our customers and letting them decide whether they need the lids. We like the GreenPlate "Go Topless" Campaign.
GP: What is the next step?
STEVE: We want to extend the network of local and sustainable coffee growers in Nicaragua. By providing better wages, and buying from additional growers, we will be able to help them set their own sustainability goals to grow coffee in ways that support their families and communities and the environment and make better coffee.
GP: How does the farm inspire you?
STEVE: Every action they take on the farm is taken with a framework of sustainability. They collect old plastic bottles from ditches and waterways and turn them into "Broca Traps" as a means to organically remove the Coffee Berry Borer, a damaging pest to the beans.
GP: Got a dirty plastic secret?
STEVE: Right now, we are selling bottled water but are looking to sell the water bottles made from corn starch.
ST. NICK HAS GREEN IN THE BAG
GREENPLATE: Mr. Claus, why is it that you've been recognized only recently for being environmentally conscious?
SANTA: Mr. Claus is my father, please call me Santa. Well, we've always been opposed to global warming in the North Pole. We certainly don't want beach front property up there! For me personally, even in spite of all the tugging from tots, I never trim my flowing white locks or shave my beard. Therefore I save water and I never leave my shaver plugged in, saving loads of energy.
GP: Oh that's terrific! Yes, unplugging standby electricity can reduce bills by 25%. Anything else?
SANTA: Everyone knows I fly a hybrid powered (Reindeer and magic) in a light aerodynamic sledding craft is quite a gas-saver as well. Some say I had the first smart vehicle ever. Living in the North Pole with six months of sunshine, the elves and I erected solar panels eons ago and reuse and recycle everything we can.
GP: Our topic today is focused on paper or plastic. Which do you choose, Santa?
SANTA: Neither! I always carry my own toy bag made of natural, durable, washable fabrics, like the ones you find at Zola Goods!
GP: So, tell us, when did you become green?
SANTA: Well, I was green before green was called green. It was simply how we lived...and how we lived simply.
GP: Santa, thank you for taking time during your busiest season of the year to talk with us.
SANTA:OK kids, Red is the new green. HO! HO! HO!
