Man, do I love coffee. I might even go to as far as saying I need coffee. Like "Instant Human, Just Add Coffee" should be a saying on my bumper sticker.  I enjoy treating myself to coffee at local coffee shops here in St. Cloud like Starbucks or Caribou  to get my delicious brew. Imagine getting your coffee in a biodegradable coffee cup.

The World's First Plantable Coffee Cup, Huff Post Via YouTube
The World's First Plantable Coffee Cup, Huff Post Via YouTube
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It’s no surprise that the world is wasting billions of dollars on food, throwing out un-recycled trash, and filling landfills with other odds and ends. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, as of 2012 Americans generated 251 million tons of trash or garbage. That's so insane to me.
There are creative ways to reduce the amount of waste such as source reduction, recycling, or even composting. So hard to be perfect when it comes to recycling.
Sure, you’ve seen biodegradable cups, but have you seen disposable coffee cups embedded with tree and flowering seeds? This is so awesome.  A California-based business called Reduce. Reuse. Grow. partnered with designer Alex Henige to create a biodegradable coffee cup embedded with planting seeds, and a local map of the best places to plant the cup when you are done drinking.
California appears to be one of the best places to test this project. According to Henige, “We have such a diverse ecosystem here that we have the ability to test over 1000 species pretty much all in our backyard with some of the world’s leading soil scientist and eco gurus. This is where we will work out all the details and be able to then start testing other regions to make the process run smoother.”
The funding has been fully provided through the Kickstarter campaign!
In America more than 146 billion cups have been discarded annually from drinking coffee. Even when the cups are being recycled, the paper products “can only be reused two to three times before the fibers are unusable and discarded into local landfills without consumers knowing.”

Here’s how it works:
1. The customer buys the coffee, drinks the beverage, then either dumps the cup in a marked bin at the restaurant or takes the cup home.
2. Simply unravel the cup. Planting zone are found on the cup itself and planting instructions on the bottom of the cup.
3. Soak the unraveled cup in water for about five minutes.
4. Plant!

Sounds super easy and so good for our earth. It's time to make a change and it starts with awesome ideas like this.
Sources:
www.epa.gov
www.elitedaily.com
www.planttrash.com
www.boredpanda.com
www.kickstarter.com

 

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