Styrofoam

BigNameCompany has thoughtfully provided us with a coffee machine and a hot chocolate machine (since the vast majority of the people who work here don't drink coffee). They have also provided styrofoam cups for use with these machines. I really wish people would understand (and appreciate) the implications of continuing to use styrofoam. Every time I see it I want to cringe, and I do, internally.

One day I was visiting the office of one of my coworkers and I noticed he had a stack of these styrofoam cups sitting on his desk. I made some crack about him single-handedly filling the local landfill with his coffee cups. He laughed, but since then I've noticed that he uses just one cup a day. Frequently I joke with him that I'm going to go to the dollar store and pick him up the ugliest cup I can find, and "you'll use it, and be happy about it!"

To which he always retorts, "You're right. Just so I don't have to listen to your b----ing about it!"

All in good fun. The thing about it is, I'm glad that he's using just one cup a day, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but if everyone who is currently using 4 or 5 cups cut down to one, think of the huge effect that will have on everything. I think a lot of humanity's abuses against nature and the environment aren't malicious in nature, they are simply things people just haven't thought about. For that reason, "environmentalists" who always get in other's faces with out first trying the subtle approach really make me mad. I mean, honestly, I have effected a change, and I did almost nothing to elicit the desired response. Perhaps if we could all just strive to be friendly and help other's see our perspective the world would not only be cleaner, but a more peaceful place.