ECO Cup
Background/
According to statistics in 2014, there are about 16,836 handmade drink shops in 36 000 square kilometers country, Taiwan. In some places, there are even ten handmade drink shops within 100 meters. Approximately, Taiwan consumes 1.5 billion disposable drink cups per year. However, the container materials cause serious. Handmade drink has become a part of Taiwanese culture. However, the container materials cause serious pollution.
Problem Identify/
There are two main kind of materials used for handmade drinks, plastic and PE Coated Paper. However, if the temperature is over 70 degrees, it dissolves plasticizer and it accelerates the soften speed of the cup when it contains acidic drinks. Also, it’s sealed with high temperature 110 degrees which releases more plasticizer. Therefore, people replace it with Polylactic Acid (PLA). It is considered environmentally friendly for it’s made by agricultural products. It can be metabolized by microorganisms into water, carbon dioxide, and methane in composting environment with specific humidity, oxygen conditions and the presence with suitable microorganisms.
However there are few drawback of PLA.
1. The decomposition rate is extremely slow in the general environment decomposition rate is. It must be sent to a closed garbage treatment plant and be decomposed by Anaerobic bacteria. If people mistakenly believe that PLA can be decomposed by the environment and self-buried or litter randomly, it will cause pollution.
2. It is hard to distinguish the difference from general plastic which results in the trouble of recycling. Although there is a PLA mark “7” to tell the difference, most people won’t pay attention to that and just throw into plastic recycling. However, it will greatly damage the physical properties and processing if plastic mixed with starch and fiber (PLA) once mixes with the traditional recyclable plastic. The entire batch of plastic recycling materials is no longer usable.
3. The production process does reduce carbon dioxide emissions but in Taiwan’s case, most of the raw materials are imported. The carbon footprint should be taken into consideration.
Shipping/
In 2015, Paris Climate Summit, unless you bring your own cups, otherwise you have to rent the cup. The ides of eco cups can be used for handmade drink shops. Taking it as inspiration, the system plan for this eco cup is that all shops can join the program. People can rent the cup when they buy drinks. Pay for the cup when they buy the drink. They can use and return it in all shops with in a period of time like one month in every shops in the program. They can get refund when they return the cup back or they can keep the cup which just means they buy a pretty and useable cup that they can still use when they buy drinks other times. The cups will be distributed to whichever shops in need in the program. This way, they will be recyclable cups for all people.
Materials needed, Environmental concerns/
Also, to make the cup good enough that people won’t feel sorry even they forget to return the cup and have to buy the cup. Other than a pretty look, it has to be usable. And it has to be low-cost to produce and eco-friendly.
Bamboo would be a great material.
There are some features that make it a good option for the material of handmade drink cup.
1. It can adjust the humidity between itself and the environment because of the vitality of the fiber. The fiber inside bamboo can automatically remove the superfluous water in in ventilated and dry environment.
2. Natural, no chemical toxic effects.
3. It is low thermal conductivity, won’t release harmful substances under high temperature
4. Light, easy to carry
5. firm, not fragile