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Avril, Sligo, “Don’t make it a one time thing, make it a habit”
Location
Sligo
Name
Avril
Impact:
Over it’s typical lifetime a re-useable coffee cup saves approximately 10kg of CO2 equivalent.
My personal sustainability action was
I Upgraded to reusable water bottles and tea cups, and started buying second hand clothes.
What inspired you to do this?
Further Education: I did a master’s in sustainable development
The Impact of the Change
I generate less waste. Now I feel guilty throwing away a coffee cup. A lot of the waste that you put in the recycling isn’t really being recycled and instead it is being exported to third world countries. I also really like the value of secondhand shops. It’s nice to buy something different, that no one else will have: and buying second hand clothes is a form of re-use too.
What advice would you have for others to do something similar?
Just be aware of your actions and how they affect other people. Start going into the second hand shops in a regular basis, don’t make it a one time thing, make it a habit
Save money as well as reduce carbon
A disposable paper coffee cup is responsible for approximately 30g CO2-eq over it’s lifespan [1]. From tree harvesting, manufacture transport and disposal.
This means that if you drink a couple of coffees a day, the disposable cups would be responsible for about 22kg of CO2-eq per year.
A study by Zero Waste Scotland found that over the lifetime of a reusable cup 10.3kg of CO2e could be saved compared to using single-use cups instead (assuming 500 uses / cups of coffee).
[1]https://sci-hub.st/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195925513000747
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