College Activism

I (Dudley) was studying at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa in the early 1990's. Mandela had been released and the first democratic elections for all of South Africa's citizens was yet to take place. This was a time of serious political turmoil in South Africa and as liberal students, many of us attended rallies and protests, excited to be part of history.

Many people will also remember or have read about the political activism of the 1960's in America. Civil rights, ban the bomb, free love. Much of this activism took place on college campuses with enlightened students and academics leading the way.

We believe that reducing waste is a cause and a political one. Without government support it will be very difficult to make the changes we need to reduce waste and thereby stabilize our environment. Last week in a discussion on his environmental policies, President Obama said "Year after year, decade after decade, we've chosen delay over decisive action. Rigid ideology has overruled sound science. Special interests have overshadowed common sense. Rhetoric has not led to the hard work needed to achieve results. Our leaders raise their voices each time there is a spike in gas prices, only to grow quiet when the price falls at the pump."

If we do not put pressure on our political leaders they may continue to delay to take action.

Once again enlightened student activists will likely take the lead in this important cause. This week we attended a presentation on Global Warming at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Members of CALPIRG (California Student Public Interest Research Group) organized posters and speakers. They discussed their plans for on campus environmental programs. These included a bike share program, where students will be able to check out bikes on campus; a Metro use program that will lay out bus routes on the OC and LA Metro to numerous student hangouts, including clubs and restaurants; a recycling program and a community activity program. Members of CALPIRG were also taking photographs of students and visitors with a sign reminding President Obama and Congress to include environmental causes and effective actions that will reduce global warming in the $850 billion bailout plan.

We also met and spoke with Christine Dubois Royal from CALPIRG and Dr. Lori Greene from the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California. Dr. Greene introduced us to a new program at the School of Physical Sciences with a focus on improving efficiency and storage of Solar Energy.

We were pleased to meet up with these enthusiastic activists at UCI and are looking forward to finding out more about their programs.

As you know our cause is to reduce the waste in Coffee Shops by using a reusable mug.

Dennis went to Kelly's Coffee & Fudge, in Buena Park, CA. They did not offer a discount for bringing in his mug. The owner said he doesn't see more than 2-3 people/month bringing their own mug in, and he wasn't even aware of his own franchise's move to become greener by switching the type of cups they use. In fact he did not realize that a sign outside promoted the new greener cups. The owner then used a paper cup to make the drink, then poured it into the mug; he explained he had to do this because the cup had lines showing him how much of each ingredient to put in. This location does not seem very interested in making much of an effort to help the environment (or even to save themselves some money on disposable cups).

Unfortunately this is an all too familiar experience at coffee shops. You do have the right to choose though. Ask the barrista to make your drink without using the paper cup for measurements. If he refuses, then get your money back and go to another coffee shop that will use your mug. Remember our purpose is to reduce the waste of coffee cups, so walking away will make the coffee shop owner think twice about their environmental policy.

Remember to take your reusable travel mug into all the coffee shops you visit and ask them for a discount. Let us know where you went and the discount offered. If you can get a pic then please send it to us at support@gogreenmug.com and we will post it in next weeks blog. Alternatively just comment on the blog and tell us about your visit.

Join our cause on Facebook at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/196342?m=fa5edc14&recruiter_id=35111682 or on the Starbucks V2V at http://www.v2v.net/actions/go-green-mug

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 you can get free shipping and 15% off with the coupon code: luvday until Valentines Day February 14th, for your personalized re-usable travel mug. We now also sell gift certificates, so you can gift your friends and family a mug and help them reduce waste.

Beach CleanUps

Congratulations President Obama! Since he became president on Tuesday, he has got off to a flying start. Although he spoke about his energy and environmental policies briefly in his inaugural address, this has obviously not been part of his initial actions because of the deep economic recession.

However we have noted that his team have made modifications to http://www.whitehouse.gov/ where you can find his new environmental policies, in which he continues to commit to a greener future.

At GoGreenMug we too have really just got started. Last week we started 2 action campaigns. Thank you to all who have joined our causes at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/196342 on Facebook and at http://www.v2v.net/actions/go-green-mug . Remember to use a reusable mug whenever you visit a coffee shop, ask for a discount and let us know about it as a comment or by sending us an email at support@gogreenmug.com .

This week we also took up Obama's call to public action and took part in 2 beach clean ups in Huntington Beach. The first was organized by the Bolsa Chica Land Trust working with the City of Huntington Beach, CA on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and saw a large turnout. Many of the larger pieces of trash picked up that day were polystyrene and paper cups from coffee shops, as well as many pieces of plastic from the plastic lids supplied at coffee shops.

The second beach cleanup we did was with Surfrider Foundation Newport Beach chapter http://surfridernb.com/ This event takes place on the 4th Saturday of every month, so please join us if you are in the area. Once again there was lots of evidence of polystyrene coffee cups and plastic lids. The 3 photographs shown above left are great examples of how obvious it is that many coffee cups end up on our beaches. Although some of them are simply left on the beach, most of this difficult to recycle waste is washed down to our beaches via the watershed. The watershed is the drainage area into a river and in much of the USA this watershed picks up waste from our streets as it drains to the river which then drains to the ocean. The best way to reduce this waste on our beaches is to reuse, reduce and recycle everything we can.
In these pics you can see some of the trash that was collected. Plastic and polystyrene photodegrade and thereby creates smaller and smaller pieces as it breaks down. Eventually these small pieces enter the food chain of smaller birds, fish and animals, causing them harm.

These 3 bag fulls were collected by 3 of us in an hour of clean up.

This week Jane also took her mug to Tropicana Bakery as part of our Facebook cause. Here are Jane's comments and picture: "Today I visited Tropicana

Bakery and Cuban Cafe in Downey, California. I learned that they do not offer a discount for bringing in your own mug. However, they seemed very receptive to the idea and it sounds like they have already made efforts to become greener in the new year by switching from using Styrofoam to paper cups. I have been to this bakery often. Their food and coffee are some of the best in Southern California and the place is always packed. It would be great if they encouraged their customers to bring in their own mugs and helped to reduce the waste."

We hope Tropicana Bakery and Cuban Cafe follow up on their attempts to reduce waste and we wish them luck.

Please let us know about any of the places you visit.

As we are asking coffee shops to show their commitment by giving larger discounts we have decided to show our commitment at GoGreenMug.com too by offering free shipping on all orders through February 14th to encourage everyone to get their own personalized mugs to take into coffee shop.

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.

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.

Easy Environmental Activism

We started this blog to motivate us to get out and make a difference in whatever way we can and so that we could be held accountable for our environmental actions.
As we are only 11 days into 2009 , we do not have a long list of environmental action accomplishments to talk about this year, but we hope to achieve many more during the year.
Here are some of the things we have done so far. We hope that you read this list and realize that you can do many of the same actions with little effort. Here is our list:
We have begun writing this blog and telling you about some of the causes we believe in and actions we are taking, so that we hold ourselves accountable for our actions.
We take our GoGreenMug.com travel mugs every time we visit a coffee shop. We never use a paper cup, plastic lid or cardboard cup holder offered at any coffee shop.
We have signed the Surfrider Foundation's "Rise Above Plastics Pledge". You can sign this too at http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/rap_pledge
We have signed the Facebook causes petition "Our Coasts are at Risk" which will be sent to President Obama to ask him and the congress to protect our coasts from offshore drilling. If you have a Facebook account you can sign this petition at http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/23?m=2b9e3807&recruiter_id=35111682
We have committed to doing at least one beach cleanup every month in 2009. Beach cleanups are easy to find and get involved with as they are organized by numerous environmental organizations. If you want to get out there and join in a beach cleanup then check out: http://www.beachcleanup.org/ or http://www.blueoceansociety.org/cleanup.htm or http://www.healthebay.org/volunteer/htbcleanup/default.asp or of course Surfrider Foundation whose different chapters do beach cleanups at beaches all over the world.


This week Dennis and Dudley visited the coffee shop/bakery 85 degrees C in the Diamond Jubilee center in Irvine. We were informed that they had some really different and exciting teas to try. This was an excellent tip and we tried some of their specialities, which we highly recommend as well as their baked goods.
Although the teas were great, we were very disappointed to find another coffee shop that did not offer a discount for bringing in our own mugs. We would not use the excuse of no discount to leave our mugs at home and get our drinks in a paper cup. We still enjoy the satisfaction of knowing we did not add to the waste.
There seem to be a number of coffee shops that do not incentivize their customers to reduce waste. We hope that we can influence their decision by telling you about them and creating a list from all around the US and Canada. Please tell us about any coffee shops you visit and what, if any discount they offered. Write comments on this blog or send us an email at support@gogreenmug.com and attach a photo for us to post. If we can create a large enough list and following, we think we will be able to encourage more coffee shops to offer better discounts for anyone helping to reduce the waste!
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.

Coffee Shop Discounts

At GoGreenMug we are committed to reducing the waste by encouraging the use of reusable travel mugs. When visiting a coffee shop bring your travel mug with you and ask the barrista to fill your mug instead of the paper or styrofoam cups offered. In this way we can reduce the contribution of coffee cups to our already large waste and pollution problem. Visit http://www.gogreenmug.com/ to get your own personalized travel mug. Use coupon code: ff2510ggm until January 1, 2009 to get a 20% discount.

In the latest "Making Waves" magazine (a Surfrider Foundation newsletter), I read about the Junk Raft, and was reminded of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. This relatively stationary area of the Pacific Ocean, which is kept in place by strong ocean currents called the North pacific Gyre, contains an estimated 100 million tons of waste material collected mostly from land based sources, such as polystyrene drinking cups and plastic lids.
As the plastic flotsam degrades in the sun, into smaller and smaller pieces, it becomes small enough to enter the food chain of the bird and aquatic species in this region. In samples taken from the gyre in 2001, the mass of plastic exceeded that of zooplankton (the dominant animal life in the area) by a factor of seven. Many of these plastic pieces end up in the stomachs of marine birds and animals, sometimes causing infection to these animals.
There is an obvious need to reduce this waste but what are our local coffee shops doing to help encourage us to bring in reusable mugs? Many of them give a discount. We have found this discount to vary depending on where you go for your daily cup. We have therefore decided to add a feature to this blog to let you know what discounts are available for customers with reusable mugs at specific coffee shops and what we think of this discount.
This week we visited a few coffee shops: The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Irvine, CA @ Main and Harvard offered us a 10 cent discount (did not seem to matter what drink it was.) The Starbucks in the Target center in the Westminister Mall, Westminister, CA also offered a 10 cents discount for regular coffee, but seemed to suggest a discretionary discount policy depending on your drink order. Mag's Donuts and Bakery on the corner of Culver and Michelson in Irvine, CA offered us a 5 cent discount, although admittedly their coffee is a lot cheaper than Starbucks or Coffee Bean.
We believe that a 10 cent discount (particularly on a more expensive drink) is not really going to encourage customers to remember to bring in their own mug each day. If these coffee shops are really interested in helping to reduce the waste and not simply in saving money on coffee cups, we believe the discounts need to be more enticing.
Let us know what you think - take your reusable travel mug into your coffee shop, order your favorite drink and ask the barrista what discount they will give you for bringing in your own mug. Enjoy your drink , get a photo or two of yourself and your mug inside or outside the coffee shop and then send us your comments and a photo (either comment to this blog or email support@gogreenmug.com). We will then post a list of coffee shops and the discounts they offer as well as the best photograph each week.
We can all help reduce the waste and hopefully reduce the impact on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch!
Until next time- Reduce the Waste!

One Mug at a Time

Welcome to the first edition of the GoGreenMug Blog.
We will use this first entry to introduce ourselves and our website, GoGreenMug.com to you and let you know what we are all about. In future blogs we will write about ways that we can all help to reduce our waste on this planet and keep you informed on all that we are doing. We will also let you know about any promotions at our store. Go to http://www.gogreenmug.com and use coupon code: ff2510ggm to get 20% off until January 1,2009.
GoGreenMug.com was started by a group of friends in Southern California. As regular coffee and tea drinkers, we started to think about where those cups go after just one use. We learned that every year, Americans throw away billions of cups (25 billion Styrofoam cups and 18 billion paper cups). If every one of these cups include a plastic lid, that's 43 billion plastic lids added to our landfills.
To help reduce the waste, we started to bring our own mugs when visiting our local coffee shops. We soon realized that we could broaden our impact and started GoGreenMug.com.
Besides saving our landfills, bringing your own mug can also save your wallet. Many coffee shops will give you a small discount for bringing in your own mug. For us regulars, this can really add up. GoGreenMug.com is developed and managed by Sadaka LLC. Sadaka is the Swahili word for charity and at the core of our business philosophy. GoGreenMug.com gives a percentage of its profits to charities and causes that are also working hard to take care of our planet. Some of these organizations include The Sierra Club, National Wildlife Federation, The Nature Conservatory, Clear the Air, Save the Whales, and Surfrider Foundation. Sadaka’s co-founders are all active participants in environmental causes, donating to and volunteering at some of these organizations. Please visit their websites to learn more about how they are helping and what you can do to help. If you have any suggestions for other environmental organizations that you think we should give to, please email us at support@gogreenmug.com

Here is a photo of two of our founders - Dennis Ho (at right) and Dudley Tabakin at the Save Trestles hearing in San Diego in September 2008, with our our still current president in 2D. To find out more about the Save Trestles campaign check out the Surfrider Foundation website.

Until next time - Reduce the waste!

Update 12/18/2008: The Department of Commerce announced today that it would uphold the California Coastal Commission's decision! The egregious project to build a toll road through San Onofre State Beach is officially illegal under state and Federal law! In a release issued from the Department of Commerce, they "determined that there is at least one reasonable alternative to the project and that the project is not necessary in the interest of national security.
Well done Surfrider and the other active enviromental groups involved and we are thrilled that we were part of this victory!