The True Story of What Was

We had a dinner and a movie date tonight. Dinner was hotdogs & pizza at Sam’s Club and the movie was Burn After Reading. The movie was pretty good. Anyhow, I know I shouldn’t shop at Wal-Mart, it’s a horrible place that doesn’t take good care of their employees, and puts small businesses out of business. It’s just so darn cheap. And I always feel like I am getting a deal at Sam’s Club (from Sam Walton – or whatever his name was/is). I mean, I just have to have that 25lb bag of flour, now that we’re making our own bread. Well, when we got our dinner, I was sad to see that they now have Styrofoam cups. I thought Chic-fil-a was the last hold out using Styrofoam cups. I remember my mom would buy me chic-fil-a, but we’d have to go somewhere else in the food court for a drink, because she refused to allow us to drink out of Styrofoam cups. Well, when we sat down to eat, I saw that the cup said this on the side:

When choosing a foam cup over paper or plastic, we considered the environmental impact of raw materials, manufacturing, shipping and disposal. We believe we have made the most responsible decision but we’re in search of an even better alternative. If you have a viable, alternative option with a smaller environmental footprint, please email your idea to cafecup@samsclub.com. Together, we can create a more sustainable Sam’s Club. Thank You! Learn more at samsclub.com/sustainability

Now, I don’t know that much about this, but it just seems fishy. It seems like they are saying, it has less on an environmental impact to make and dispose of Styrofoam, but they aren’t taking into account that it takes 20,000 years for a Styrofoam cup to disintegrate. I found a good article on this. I think the reason manufacturing and disposing of Styrofoam has less impact on the environment is probably because manufacturing and disposing of paper and plastic involves recycling. But I feel like in the long run, Styrofoam is still worse. Who knows?!