FYI there is another idea on the forum to ban all disposable cups, plates and cultery in restaurants and cafes.

http://vancouver.uservoice.com/forums/56390-gc-2020/suggestions/921417-ban-disposable-cups-plates-and-cutlery-in-all-res?ref=title

What about a 10c charge per takeout coffee cup? People will adapt, as they did with plastic grocery bags, and learn to bring their own cup.

Also, we should find ways to encourage people to bring their own containers for take out. Whenever we do it, people in restaurants notice and comment on it. Could we encourage restaurants to give a discount for take out when people bring their own containers?

Some more info on the ban:

Put into effect July 1, the ordinance requires restaurants, coffee shops, food courts, cafeterias and other food service businesses to stop throwing away single-use food-service ware and packaging including napkins, paper bags, wooden coffee stir sticks, clamshells and hot and cold beverage cups and lids among others.

The city has contracted with Cedar Grove Composting to accept the commercial food-service products and provide restaurants with an accepted list of compostable items.

“With our requirement that food service packaging must be compostable or recyclable, Seattle has taken a big step toward a **** waste future,” said City Councilmember Mike O’Brien. “You have to ask yourself why we should make stuff just to throw it away. With compostable and recyclable food containers, we’re closing the loop.”

Food establishments using compostable or recyclable food service products are required to provide collection bins for customers.

According to Seattle Public Utilities spokesman **** Lilly, about half of the 1,700 restaurants in Seattle have signed up for food-waste collection by Cedar Grove. The City hopes participation of the new ordinance will help prevent 6,000 tons of food service-ware and leftover food from entering landfills.

The compost process at Cedar Grove takes about eight weeks, depending on the time of year. From there, it sits a few weeks to darken before it can be sold as compost for use in gardens and landscaping.

Similar regulations for single-use food service packaging are being tried in San Francisco and are planned in Toronto.

To expand on this, Seattle passed an ordinance that bans the use of styrofoam fast food containers and requires restaurants to switch to containers that can be composted or recycled. Impressive!

http://earth911.com/news/2010/07/06/seattle-bans-single-use-restaurant-packaging-from-landfills/

http://clerk.ci.seattle.wa.us/~scripts/nph-brs.exe?d=CBOR&s1=116250.cbn.&Sect6=HITOFF&l=20&p=1&u=/~public/cbor2.htm&r=1&f=G

I don't think banning coffee cups is going to be as difficult as some suggest. Australia successfully banned plastic grocery bags. As I understand it, there was a mini uproar, then people got over it and figured out how to get their groceries home without plastic. People are adaptable. Assuming they aren't is one of the ***** ways we shoot ourselves in the foot.

A friend of mine just opened a coffee shop -- Sangha Bean -- in Revelstoke, and she won't use disposable cups. Her clientele seems to love the idea.

Here is the smartest and most trustworthy solution folks. Attend the monthly sustainability pledge taking ceremony at the City Hall and receive the ceremonial personal reusable personal thermos and get it filled at Tim Horten, Starbucks or the store of your choice. Asking the government to tax us to talk sense into your heads is extreme stupidity. Governments are simply not that smart, efficient and corruption free that they would even deliver the worth of your money. To find out where you and half a dozen of your friends can kick start this pledge taking to start changing the world go to WWW.RUN.TO/VSR

An off track note: Coffee in Europe tastes GOOD, people therefore do take the time to enjoy it...

A remedy that has a way better hope of working out is people commit to consuming lot less coffee as it is not a basic biological need, next consume only home brewed coffee and when drinking this extravagant beverage outside the house use the ceremonial personal mug that is to be owned by everyone committed to saving the planet. That is what is consistent with the inside out or bottom up approach which has a lot better hope of success than the popular outside in or top to bottom approaches.

The only trouble is that in light of our civil liberties banning coffee cups is going to be harder than banning tobacco products, If that were possible I would begin by banning tobacco, partly because the most powerful anti-climate lobbyists are the same as Big Tobacco and Big Oil.

Agreed. See http://trailertrashed.org/ for a little extra inspiration on the disposal coffee cup issue. Changing the norm towards ceramic is the way to go, but an integrated approach could be at least to require compostable cups (PLA lined) instead. I'm surprised how few coffee shops - even the ones that purport to be green - have gone this route.