“Coffee companies said the city was stepping beyond its jurisdiction and they’d do it voluntarily,” said Emily Alfred, of the Toronto Environmental Alliance (TEA). There was a proposal to ban paper cups with plastic lids and another to force coffee shops to give customers with their own mugs a 20-cent discount. Nine years ago, the city formed a task force to look for ways to get coffee cups out of the trash. “Paper coffee cup sleeves can be recycled, as they do not contain a plastic type lining in the fibre material.” “Coffee cups are considered a contaminant in our Blue Bin recycling program at this time,” Jim McKay, general manager, solid waste management services, wrote in an email. The Star reported in 2009 that Torontonians were discarding about a million cups a day the city was unable to confirm whether that number has risen or declined since then. That includes hot beverage cups, though just how many land in blue bins is unknown. Last year, an estimated 45,000 tonnes of garbage was mistakenly deposited into the recycling stream, where it can end up damaging equipment, causing workplace injuries and ruining perfectly good recyclables. Those empty Second Cup, Starbucks and Tim Hortons cups should actually go into the regular garbage, which is why the city has just launched Bad Things Happen, a public education campaign that identifies the leading “culprits” not intended for recycling bins. Every day, Torontonians throw away hundreds of thousands of used coffee cups, many dropping them into blue bins under the false assumption they’ll end up be recycled. “I put mine in the recycle bin,” she said, clinging to her belief, but adding, “you’d better check Google.” Then she read the tiny print around the bottom: “This cup is made with 10 per cent post consumer recycled fibre.” The Starbucks barista, when quizzed, said confidently the disposable coffee cup she was holding was 100 per cent recyclable.
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