Planet Care: Does Your Coffee Habit Harm The Environment?

Recent data revealed that coffee consumption is making an impact on the environment. Though it does not have to do with the brew itself, it does,however, involve the plastic and paper coffee cups being used that's making an impact when it comes to recycling and waste management.

According to Independent, around one percent of 2.5 billion paper and plastic cups used for coffee consumption in the UK every year is already being recycled. It was mentioned that the recycling began after facing difficulties in removing the plastic lining in coffee cups.

One solution being opted in terms of controlling the excessive coffee cups waste is to have it taxed (like plastic bags) in order for the public to lie low in term of using the hard-to-dispose trash. Having the coffee cups taxed is part of urging the consumers to bring their own cups to cafes. This suggestion was given by one of UK's minister, Rory Stewart.

"I absolutely agree. It's a huge problem and there are tens of millions of these things being produced and thrown away," Stewart said. "As you have pointed out, many of these things cannot be recycled either by the way they're disposed or because of the composition of the cup. Having tackled plastic bags, which I hope everybody in the House would agree the plastic bag tax has been a success, coffee cups seem to be a very good thing to look at next."

Though the idea of having coffee cups taxed may seem remarkable, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs however responded stating that they don't have any plans in having coffee cups taxed. The Guardian released a report stating that Minister Rory Stewart's suggestion was opposed by House of Commons, Labor MP,Rob Marris.

Statistics revealed that more than seven billion of paper cups are being used each day. Part of the problem came from Britan's biggest coffee chains such as Starbucks, Costa, Café Nero and Pret as they were accused of falsely informing their customers that their coffee cups were environment-friendly.