Too Much Trash in Our Oceans

International Surfing Day is on June 20th 2009. The day was created by Surfing Magazine to promote and celebrate surfing. The day is not only about surfing , it is also about the ocean and protecting it for our recreation both in the water and on the beaches.

On International Surfing Day, Go Green Mug will be at Huntington Beach, CA to take part in the fun and help with the beach cleanup. We would love to see you there too. Check out http://www.surfingmagazine.com/isd/ to find International Surfing Day activities in your area.

The recent crash of the Air France flight was a terrible disaster and the search for the remains of the plane highlighted another disaster, this one environmental. In the early stages of the search for the plane, the searchers thought they had found some of the debris from the crash, but on further investigation it turned out that this was not part of the missing aircraft but other, all too common, ocean trash.

The ocean is unfortunately full of trash, from large items such as couches and refrigerators to the tiny pieces of plastic that we have discussed before in the blog http://gogreenmug.blogspot.com/2009/01/coffee-shop-discounts.html. This trash circles around in the ocean currents and destroys marine life.

How can so much trash end up in our oceans that it becomes difficult to identify parts of a plane from other debris that just happens to be there? The fault of course lies with all of us, particularly in the USA. We know we can do more about our consumption of single use plastics or paper or polystyrene.
We know we do not need to buy bottled water.
We can bring our own canvas bags when we go grocery shopping and reject the plastic bags.
We can drive more fuel efficient vehicles or drive less and use public transport or bikes.
We can use reusable travel mugs at coffee shops and eliminate our use of paper cups.
And we can help at beach and/or river clean ups and prevent the trash from running into the oceans.

http://www.gogreenmug.com/ is still selling personalized travel mugs at only $14.99 with shipping. If you are not using a travel mug when you visit a coffee shop, then get one now.

US Fuel Efficiency Standards Too Low?

Last week we discussed the new US fuel efficiency standards that were agreed between the White House, Environmentalists and the Auto Industry. We questioned the concerns of those who suggest that US consumers will not spend extra money on a more fuel efficient car unless the cost of fuel increases and remains high.

Continuing with this topic, we have also heard from the other side of the spectrum that the fuel efficiency standard of 39 mpg for a passenger car to be met in incremental stages before 2016 is too low. Here they may have a point. The average fuel efficiency of all cars, SUVs and minivans in the US is around 23 mpg. In Europe and Japan that figure is over 40 mpg. So if Europe and Japan already produce cars with an average fuel consumption higher than the standard set to be reached in the US by 2016 then why is this standard so low.

While you can buy a few cars in the US that get great fuel economy (Toyota Prius, Honda Civic Hybrid, Mini Cooper, Smart and now the VW Jetta TDI), around 40 mpg, there are not too many and at least 2 of them (the Mini and the Smart) are small cars. One of the reasons Europe in particular has such a good average fuel efficiency is that there are numerous cars that use clean diesel engines. In fact back in 2002 when I (Dudley) Lived in England I drove a VW Golf TDI (diesel) that got about 50 mpg, . In fact diesel engines get at least 30% more fuel efficiency than gas powered engines.

So why do we not have more diesel powered cars in the USA? Diesel engines actually produce less carbon dioxide emissions than gas powered cars but unfortunately they give off other pollutants such as Nitrogen Oxide and other small particulates. In the USA and particularly some states the emission standards are high and the higher sulfur content in US diesel means many diesel engines cannot meet these stricter standards. In Europe this problem is averted because their diesel has a much lower sulfur content than the diesel produced in the USA and therefore gives off less Nitrogen Oxide and particulates. The German engineered cars (Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes) also seem to be far ahead in producing clean burning diesel engines.

So we know how Europe achieves its 40mpg average fuel efficiency standard with diesel powered cars. We also know that there are less diesel cars in the US because of the concerns with emissions but that the technology is improving quickly and some diesel cars that are now meeting the emissions standards and being sold in the US.

If we take these diesel engines into account in the US, knowing that they can achieve fuel efficiency standards above 40mpg already then the 39 mpg standard set passenger cars by 2016 is really not good enough.

But lets look at this in a different way. Until now very few diesel powered cars have been sold in the US and if standards for gas powered cars was to increase to 39 mpg that would be a reasonable goal. If a smallish gas powered car in 2009 averages 30 mpg, then a 30% increase to 39 mpg over 7 years should be an achievable goal for most car manufacturers.

At http://www.gogreenmug.com/ we would love to see much higher standards but we also expect that once car manufacturers start to improve fuel efficiency there will be no point stopping at 39 mpg, because in the end we know that gas prices will rise and the demand for ever more fuel efficient vehicles will increase. We hope to see a hard drive storage space like evolution in fuel efficiency soon.

Reduce Waste - Win a Free Travel Mug!

On a recent visit to our local coffee shop we were once again astounded that we were the only customers using our own travel mugs. Yes that's right, of the 12 - 15 other customers enjoying their coffee drinks at the tables, all of them were using paper cups and many had plastic lids and cardboard sleeves too.

At GoGreenMug.com we are concerned with the number of paper cups, plastic lids and other coffee shop waste that ends up in our landfills. The simple solution is to bring and use your own travel mug at coffee shops. It's time to step up our efforts.

We will be giving away one free personalized travel mug (100% free, shipping included) each week over the next few weeks to promote the use of travel mugs.

All you need to do is visit http://www.gogreenmug.com and design your own personalized travel mug. Add your name, drink options or any other text, photograph and quote. At checkout enter the coupon code: xjumnw1 to see if you have won.


The coupon code will be activated at a random time between the first posting of this blog and Sunday May 17th at 5:00PM.
If the coupon code works then you are the winner for the week. If the code does not work you will get the error message "The coupon code you have entered has expired." If you get this message, the coupon code has either not yet been randomly activated (so you can keep trying this code until the contest expires) or the free mug has already been won for this week.


We will be sending out a new code next week for another free giveaway or you can use coupon code: flwmiblg to receive an immediate 20% discount. Depending on your web browser, your designed mug may be saved for your next visit if you do not checkout.

Rules: The free mug coupon code will be made active at a random time during the period from the posting of this blog until Sunday May 17th at 5:00PM PST. The first customer to try the coupon code therefore may not win. The first customer to use the coupon code correctly once it is active will be the winner. This decision is final. Shipping to the USA and Canada only. We will contact the winner and request a photograph with his/her personalized Go Green travel mug and permission to post his her name on this blog. This coupon is only redeemable for a travel mug on GoGreenMug.com, and has no cash value.