A Tale of Two Road Trips

If at first you don’t succeed...

 This is my Mea Culpa for not succeeding, or rather my Mea Cuppa, because my failure was using too many disposable cups on a recent road trip.

In the past month and half, I’ve taken two multi-day trips.  On the first, I used a number of disposable, single-use cups.  But I learned from this and reduced my use of disposable cups on the second trip.

Always pack reusable cups!

 This harkens back to a recent post on this blog, Coffee with a shot of Conservation Part 1 (posted June 9, 2016), in which I talked about greening my coffee routine. I researched sustainability issues associated with coffee consumption and learned that we in the United States use disposable cups to excess, around 15 billion each year.  So, to try to live a more sustainable lifestyle, I resolved to drink from reusable cups whenever possible.

Not long after I posted this, I took an unexpected road trip, driving with my cousin to a funeral in Kansas City.  Only a few hours into the trip, I realized that I was failing to follow the resolution in my post—to always bring reusable beverage containers with me.  While I had remembered to bring my refillable water bottle, I hadn’t brought any other cups with me. So, when we stopped for those caffeine jolts that are so helpful on long drives, I got my coffee in a disposable cup.

My cousin, who is very environmentally aware, was an unassuming example of how it should be done. He brought a reusable coffee mug with him and asked to have his coffee in that cup. I was impressed at how accommodating the mini-marts, convenience stores, and fast-food places were. They seemed perfectly comfortable putting the coffee in his cup, rather than one of their own. During the trip, my cousin didn’t use any single-use cups (at least that I saw). He both inspired me and put me to shame.

I, on the other hand, bought several coffee beverages in single-use cups over the course of three days. Plus I generated a few cans from carbonated drinks over the course of the trip.  Paper coffee cups aren’t recyclable, so I had to toss them. I also ended up bringing home a bag with plastic cups and aluminum cans to recycle. But while recycling is good, reducing use is better. If my trip had been graded pass/fail, I would have flunked on this trip.

Remembering to “Reduce”

 By the second trip, to a professional meeting a few weeks later, I had learned my lesson and did better. In addition to my aluminum water bottle, I brought my own insulated coffee mug. In the morning, I took the mug to the hotel’s continental breakfast and carried coffee with me to the conference venue. So all my coffee was in my reusable cup.

While there, I bought some Coke in plastic bottles from a small market. While this wasn’t my most sustainable choice, I at least carried them back to the hotel in the reusable cloth shopping bag I had in my purse. I brought a couple of bottles home to recycle, while others were recycled via receptacles at the conference venue. I was pleased that the venue, Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison WI, had such prominent recycling containers.

Another way that Monona Terrace helped support sustainable choices was the multiple drinking fountains with water bottle refilling stations. If you haven’t used one, water bottle filling stations have a tap above the main drinking fountain, giving ample room to place a tall water bottle underneath. An “electronic eye” of some sort detects when a bottle is held underneath the tap and dispenses cold water into the bottle. Water bottles can be refilled quickly and easily with these. On trip two, bringing a reusable coffee cup in addition to my water bottle meant that my disposable beverage cup use went way down compared to my first trip.

So what did I learn?  While recycling has become very automatic for me, both at home and away, I need to do the same to make practices that reduce my use of disposables second nature. I learned that I need to make packing reusable cups as automatic as packing my toothbrush and deodorant. It may take me a few more trips before the behavior is ingrained. But at least it’s on my radar screen.