Obama Style Community Action

On Tuesday 20 January, 2009 Barrack Obama will become the new President of the USA. In regard to the government's environmental policy we believe that his presidency will benefit and promote environmental causes. If you are interested in finding out more about President Obama's Environmental and Energy plan then go to http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy .

We are particularly pleased that his plan includes a goal to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, to make federal buildings more energy efficient and to set high standards for clean air and water. President Obama's plans, definitely align with our goals at Go Green Mug. We therefore hope and expect that he will follow through on his plans with little delay after his inauguration.

President Obama's election campaign was also a great example of community action. He managed to raise an estimated $650 million. Most of which came from small donations. He also managed with his grass roots efforts to get many first time voters registered and voting.

Community action also made a difference in the Save Trestles campaign. More than 3000 people showed up at each of the public hearings, to protest the proposed Toll Road through the San Mateo Creek and San Onofre State Park. As we reported in our first blog, the Federal Government recently agreed with the California Coastal Commission in declaring the Toll Road illegal. Community action once again won out.

With these community victories in mind, we believe that it is through community action that we can get closer to one of our goals. If you have followed this blog regularly, you will know that we report on some of our coffee shop visits. We let you know what coffee shops were visited that week and what discount was offered. Our primary goal at Go Green Mug is to reduce the waste in whatever way we can. As coffee and tea drinkers we see a focused goal of reducing the number of paper cups being thrown out at coffee shops, by encouraging people to bring their own mug into the shop.

Coffee shops have their role to play too. If they offer large discounts to customers bringing in their own mugs then they will incentivize more customers to bring in their own mugs. We all benefit - less waste, larger discounts, and for the coffee shop lower expenses for all their cups and plastic lids as well as a reputation for wanting to reduce the waste.

We have created a community action on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/196342?recruiter_id=35111682 as well as at http://www.v2v.net/actions/go-green-mug on the Starbucks V2V. Please sign up to participate in these actions and we can encourage Starbucks and other large coffee chains to increase their standard 10 cent discount. As part of this action take your own mug into a coffee shop and ask for a discount and then report the experience and the discount to us either as a comment, on this blog or via email at support@gogreenmug.com . Please add a photograph if you would like and we will post the best one each week on this blog. We will keep a list of all the coffee shops and their discounts and in this way encourage the coffee shops to do more to reduce waste for all of us who are committed to bringing in our own mugs every time we visit a coffee shop.

This week we visited Peet's Coffee shop in the Bella Terra center in Huntington Beach. They also offered a standard 10cent discount, which is just more than a 3% discount on the price of the drinks. Our picture this week is from Melanie, she was at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, who offered the standard 10 cent discount. Not really a great commitment to reducing waste from either of these 2 large coffee shop chains.

Follow us on this blog as we try to make a difference by getting involved with environmental causes and promoting the use of mugs in place of paper or polystyrene cups through our website GoGreenMug. Go to http://www.gogreenmug.com/ and use the new year coupon code: ny1501ggm to get 15% off your personalized re-usable travel mug through January 2009. We now also sell gift certificates, so you can gift your friends and family a mug and help them reduce waste.