Enviro Crazies Wrong Again : Styrofoam Cup

The bigger they are the harder they fall - the environmentalist nutjobs will say anything to get noticed and become relevant. More importantly, what they say never has to be true, only show that they care about the environment, mother earth. Who can be against mother earth?

We all know how that 'touchy feely' thing goes, they mean well, it's just this time it 'didn't work out as we planned'. The definition of 'didn't work out as planned' means, nobody bought the lie.

Activists Wrong about Styrofoam Cups
Source: Angela Logomasini, "Fast Food Outlet in Pickle as Activists Attack Foam Cup," Pajamas Media, August 16, 2011.

Activists have long claimed that foam cups are less energy efficient than paper cups because they were not recycled as much. More recently, they have levied the charge that the cups are dangerous because they are made with a supposed carcinogenic chemical -- styrene. They are wrong on both counts, says Angela Logomasini, director of risk and environmental policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

First consider the impact on energy usage. Earlier this year, the research group Franklin Associates released findings from their lifecycle assessment of polystyrene packaging and alternative paper products. Such assessments attempt to measure the impact that products have on the environment during their entire lifetime -- from cradle to grave.

The company found that the average 16-ounce polystyrene cup uses a third less energy, produces 50 percent less solid waste by volume, and releases a third less of greenhouse gases than does a 16-ounce paper cup with a sleeve.

Over their lifecycles, polystyrene packaging products require 20 to 30 percent less water than do paper alternatives.

Ironically, there are additional adverse environmental impacts resulting from the politically correct substitution of foam cups. Specifically, the elimination of foam cups causes some people to "double cup," placing one paper cup within another to prevent burning their hands.
According to Franklin Associates, "double-cupping" results in over twice as much energy and solid waste volume, and over five times as much solid waste by weight.

It also results in nearly twice as much greenhouse gas emissions as the use of a single polystyrene cup.