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Just imagine how many people drink takeaway coffee in your workplace, on the street, on public transportation, in a car etc. Let’s take a simple number:one million. Now imagine all the waste of these throwaway coffee cups made of paper and plastic. Did you imagine a huge hill? Chances are, you are right with your estimation on how big this pile is.

So why do we have get throwaway coffee cups instead of sitting down and actually enjoying our coffee and talking with our friends or colleagues? Since when quick caffeine intake is the single most important feature of a coffee?

Just about fifty years ago there were dozens of small coffee places in Budapest, mostly with live music. Today you’ll have to look hard to find live music (in some evenings at Lado café) and there are many places where you can’t really sit down to enjoy your coffee.

I recommend that you try this: sit down in a nice coffee place after your lunch and just relax and talk with your colleagues instead of rushing back to your workplace. We did this with my colleagues for years and I can assure you that it’s beneficial for you and your company too. If you do it with colleagues about half of the time you’ll be talking about work.

You are lucky if you actually have drinkable coffee at your workplace, although most people have surprisingly low requirements for the quality and taste of the coffee. Regardless it’s always nice to change your environment and go out for a couple of minutes.

If you still decide to get your coffee in a big chain I ask you to please buy and bring your reusable cup. This way you do something for the environment and also save a little money for the company. Each cup matters in the long term.

I don’t say I wasn’t guilty, as I did take many coffee in plastic cups, if there was no alternative. However I made alternatives. There is a canteen near my workplace where they serve good quality coffee, so I used to go there. I don’t drink the coffee at my current workplace, however I was thinking since a long time how to brew my own coffee there. My girlfriend recommended a solution, as she already had a coffee machine which doesn’t require electricity or a stove. It’s called ROK coffee machine. It looks great and makes great coffee. I grind my coffee freshly.

The featured image is shared on Fortepan (Hungarian photo archive) licensed under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-3.0 licence. Click here to view the original Astoria coffee house image from 1962 on Fortepan