Ithaca Dining Services and The Resource and Environmental Management Program (REMP) will once again be hosting the Spot-A-Mug campaign!
For the entire semester, REMP and Dining Services seek out and “spot” students who use a refillable mug on campus, and present them with a coupon redeemable for one 16oz. coffee at Grand Central, IC Square Food Court, Sub Connection, The Café at the Park School, or the CHS Coffee Cart. This is to reward the IC community for good habits in sustainability and environmentalism.
The reason for this campaign is simple: every year, Americans throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam coffee cups. All of this waste could easily be reduced simply by using reusable mugs. Energy use, landfill space, greenhouse gas emissions, and much more are all implicated in wasting Styrofoam or paper coffee cups. To show that you care, invest in a reusable mug. If you haven’t picked up a recyclable coffee mug yet, they are on sale at IC Square Food Court for $1.99. In addition, Sodexho donates $.15 from the proceeds of every mug sold to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
Keep your mug with you whenever you go out for coffee—you can be spotted and rewarded anytime!
For more information on the program, please email us at irecycle@ithaca.edu.
Ithaca Dining Services offers a variety of services including residential and retail dining. For more information regarding Ithaca Dining Services, explore our website at www.ithacadiningservices.com. Ithaca Dining Services is proudly managed by Sodexho, Inc, (www.sodexhoUSA.com) the leading provider of integrated food and facilities management in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Polystyrene cups may take less energy and money to produce up front than paper cups, but they cannot be composted and essentially never decompose. Very few recycling companies accept them. And because they cannot easily be compacted, they take up more landfill space than paper.
The chemical styrene has been classified as a possible human carcinogen by the EPA, and studies have proved that such chemicals leach into food and drink from Stryofoam containers. Another known carcinogen, beneze, is used in the production of polystyrene cups.
This year, San Francisco banned its food vendors from using Styrofoam containers under most conditions, and New York City is considering a similar bill. I suggest Sodexho do the same.