make art, not waste
Today I celebrate a little milestone – 20 coffee cups saved from landfill.
Not too long ago, I became very aware of the huge quantities of coffee the RedBubble office consumes. (The internet never sleeps and neither shall we!)
I probably should have been concerned about the adrenalin pumping heart tremor causing effects of caffeine, but instead I set off on a personal crusade to reduce the number of take away coffee cups we were throwing out each week.
My first attempt was to drink fewer cups of coffee. I got the shakes as withdrawal set in, and was only saving 2-4 coffee cups from landfill per day. I declared this tactic a dismal failure and pledged to do better.
Thankfully, Russell knew a stylish and aesthetically pleasing place for us to pick up some reusable plastic cups for those times when our caffeine levels are critical. So we ordered a bunch and now every staff member here has one.
The amount of coffee cup waste has significantly reduced and today I ordered my 20th guilt free cappuccino with one sugar. It felt good. Very good.
But then I wondered about all the other disposable coffee cups out there. This got me searching for some cool things you can do with them. It turns out, quite a lot…
The lantern festival and reusing coffee cups
Foam cup drawings sell for hundreds
Coffee cup masks
Learn to make coffee cup tissue dispensers
Take the coffee cup challenge
Melinda Kerr
A cup you can take to cafes? What a brilliant idea.
Jo O'Brien
replied
The simplest ideas are often the best. The cafe loves them too because they are the exact same size as standard take away cups.
RandyLMonteith
Here Jo I know the relationship that youi have with certain types of machines and made you this reusable coffee cup
Enjoy
Randy
Jo O'Brien
replied
My washing machine fetish isn’t exactly a secret then huh?
Love it!
clarkey
LOL, this is a wonderful Journal, Jo, and your links lead to sites which are really cool . . . and handy! Although I have to wonder at the sanity of someone who’d pay $US120.00 for one with a drawing on it.
Jo O'Brien
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People make very expensive art out of all sorts of things
sally williams
Oohh, where do you get the cups from?
Jo O'Brien
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We bought ours from keepcup.com.au but there are plenty of places your can get them.
DeviousLili
Hooray for recycling and reusing and for your brilliant, sexy mind!! Love the idea immensely. Now, if I ever spent any real time anywhere other than inside my house with my glass mug with the one million USD bill on it … (I’ll have to take a photo of it now, I’m sure) ... yeah.
You rock, Sweetpea. Always thinking. xox
Jo O'Brien
replied
So what you’re saying is that
a. you always reuse your coffee cup
b. you save petrol by staying home
c. I have a sexy mind
Sounds, pretty good to me ;)
Jessica Tremp
awesome
Jo O'Brien
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hello there you :)
clarkey
Now that is something I would love to see but the impossibility of getting there makes it a wish which will remain unfulfilled. thanks for the link, Jo, it’s very interesting, and fascinating.
Jessica Tremp
Hiiiiiii! x
DeviousLili
a. I reuse it to the point where the paint is chipping away.
b. I prefer to walk everywhere, anyway. Makes it easier to capture things with the camera. ;)
c. Damn right, you do!
xox
tkrosevear
awesome recycling job jo ;) xoxox TK ♥
Jo O'Brien
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Cheers TK, and we’re doing it in style!
kittbagg
Cool idea – I prefer to sit at the local bakery and have my daily Cappuccino hit in a Mug!!
Jo O'Brien
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No rest for the wicked – finding tea break time can be a tad tricky around these parts!
H M Bascom
Excellent Jo!
Jo O'Brien
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There may only be a few of us, but every bit counts, and now people at the cafe see us with our cool cups and want to know how they can get one too.I hope it catches on.
RandyLMonteith
Ok Jo since I am not a coffee drinker how about I start reusing pixels instead of throwing them out evertime I start another piece of artwork?
Jo O'Brien
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reusing pixels? ummmm…. okay? You’ll have to explain to me how that one would work :)
John Robb
.... or you can gather all your coffee cups and with fishing line suspend them in mid air waiting for your work colleague to come back into his office from his vacation…..
hehehe
Jo O'Brien
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Ha! Brilliant
Christopher E...
umma..how about using a ceramic cup, one you just simply wash?
if you go to a place to get your java, have them use your cup instead of getting 1 of their to go cups
or do like i do..not drink coffee! lol
good onya tho for thinking of ways not to add to the mass waste in the fields
Jo O'Brien
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I think the advantage of these ones is they have a sipper top with the little hole, and if you know me, and the mess I make, anything that avoids spillage is a big plus!
Jennifer Woodward
Randy, i don’t like coffee either, tea?!
Jo O'Brien
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What is it with all these non-coffee people. How do you get up in the morning?
Natalie Manuel
My partner makes such good coffee that I have given up on store bought stuff and have instead spent the last month or so trying to replicate his skill. This is a possibility for other idiots, hehe.
Jo O'Brien
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So, basically we need to hire your partner to sit in the office all day making us coffee into our reusable cups. Sounds like a plan ;)
Russell Greenwood
For any local Melbourne people you an also just grab these cups in local shops the addresses are on the Keepcup website – but good luck, I think my Wife has cleared them all out for her office :)
Jo O'Brien
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By George he’s right. Here’s the list
John Robb
oh and there was that crazy lune who once made a pinhole camera out of a coffee cup :-)
Jo O'Brien
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Got a picture of it handy John?
funkyfacestudio
That is really cool Jo ! if more people join in that will be even better but if not maybe they could make some art with their garbage ;)
One of my favorite stores Anthropologie uses recycled things in their art and displays
plastic cup display
plastic straw display
Jo O'Brien
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Wow, doesn’t it look fantastic!
look-plastic-cup-display-at-anthropologie-063566Kind of reminds me of how people stick them through wire fences
BYRON
My personal solution to coffee-cup pollution is to only drink coffee made from Jamaican Blue Mountain Coffee Beans.
“How does this work, Mr Byron?” I hear you ask…
JBMCB cost $200 per kilogram. Yep, it is THE most expensive coffee bean in the world. And with very very good reason. Once you have had coffee made with JBMCB (short black espresso is best for JBMCB) then you will never drink any other bean again.
Now that you realise that your nice little caffiene addiction is gonn a cost $10 a shot, you don’t drink as much anymore… problem solved.
Unless you grind your own, and work overtime to pay for the beans…
I didn’t say it was a perfect theory…
Jo O'Brien
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So your solution is to become the ultimate coffee connoisseur until anything except the best tastes like crap. I can dig that :)
BYRON
Yeah, that’s the plan Jo. I have cut back my coffee drinking from 4 per day, to only 1-2 per week, because that is all I can afford.
Less often, best quality.
I am not a coffee connoisseur, because that sounds winky… I am more like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. I am the Coffee Nazi. I wont even consider instant coffee (which has offended some people when I refused…)
georgiegirl
Actually… that photo of the cups on the wall is perfect for bubble HQ… just imagine them red!!! I was going to suggest a kettle, reuseable cup (you can get them with sippa lids these days) and a jar of coffee (and milk and stuff as well)... but I just love that wall so keep buying cups of coffee and in a couple of weeks (or days…) you can show off the new bubbly wall :D
Jo O'Brien
replied
haha, so we’re sacrificing art too now! lol
DeviousLili
A bit late, but here it is: