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.

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!