Here at EcoJoes, we’ve looked at styrofoam and paper disposable cups, and came to the not-so-stunning conclusion that it’s best to use reusable cups. Not only are reusable cups good for the environment, they can save you money at coffee shops! Hot diggity.

But for most people, every once in a while they forget their reusable mug, so they buy coffee in a disposable cup. Hopefully, it’s a compostable, paper, insulated cup from Repurpose.

I got to test out one of these bad boys today, and it worked great. The paper wall is sort of puffy, so it stays insulated without needing extra layers of paper or a paper sleeve, meaning it uses less paper than most other disposable cups. How about that.

I’ve had about 3 cups o’ coffee today in my cup, and it did great keeping the coffee warm (at least 15 minutes staying the perfect temperature). The cup’s still holding together fine, too. Your hands won’t get burnt either, even if the drink is piping hot.

The neatest part to me is that Repurpose claims these cups (and the lids) are compostable within 90 days. That doesn’t mean I can watch it compost in my home composter, though.

As the Repurpose Compostables C.M.O. points out,

Our cups compost in an industrial composter, not your home composter. So you won’t be able to watch them compost at home. The product needs the heat and humidity that only an industrial composter provides and then it turns on the break down like switch and it takes 45-90 days to finally compost. They are ASTM 6400 and BPI certified to do so.

Researchers are still working on viable home composting possibilities for single use products. The problem is that in order to withstand the heat and moisture of your cup of coffee, the cup has to have an integrity that makes the home composter not an option if that makes sense. If it composted at home in any conditions it wouldn’t be a very sturdy product.

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Did you know that a bunch o’ people raise chickens in their backyards inside the beltline?

Do you wish there was a tour of all these backyard coops coming soon?

If so, then you, my friend, have got your wish, for the 2011 Raleigh Henside the Beltline Tour d’Coop is this Saturday from 10AM to 4PM!

I’ve been fortunate enough to go on the 2008 tour and the 2010 tour, and I can assure you you’ll see some jawsome backyards, houses, chicken coops, gardens, and chickens.

You’ll laugh at the antics of the hens, marvel at elaborate hen houses, and maybe even get to hold a chicken. Plus there are tons of helpful people around to answer your insightful chicken questions.

How Can I Go?

Bring a non-perishable food item or a wad of cash money to one of these convenient locations (money & food goes to Urban Ministries):

• Steven B. Andreaus, DDS , PA1637 Glenwood Avenue , across from the Rialto Theater
• Ornamentea: 509 N. West Street, one block south of Peace Street
• CupAJoe: 2109-142 Avent Ferry Road, in the lower level of Mission Valley Shopping Center
• Whole Foods Market: 3540 Wade Avenue, in the Ridgewood Shopping Center
• Seaboard ACE Hardware: 802 Semart Drive, across from Logan’s Nursery

To find out more, mosey on over to the official website, right about here.

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All you have to do for this delicioso free beverage is bring in a reusable mug and use that, instead of a disposable cup. Check out the rotch side of this page for more details.

Not only do you get you some free coffee or tea, but you’re reusing a mug instead of wastefully using yet another disposable cup. Feel free to use the free coffee to proudly toast Mother Earth AKA Gaia.

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All natural + free = the essence of EcoJoes.

Will it work? Heck, I don’t know, but I’m eagerly awaiting my free sample of tea as I type this.

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Then Teeny Tiny Spice Co. (of Vermont) has got you covered. They’re a small, family-run business that grinds their organic spices when you order them, so they arrive fresh and strong like bear. They sent me a package of their finest spices last weekend:

Not only do they offer their organic spices, but they also sent some cool recipes for said spices. I immediately sprinted into the kitchen to try my hand at whipping up some Garam Masala Pumpkin Bread (in case you have extra pumpkin after making pumpkin pie).

After following the simple recipe, mixing the ingredients (including the provided garam masala), and cookin’ it all in my electric oven, out popped this bad boy.

Hot dang it was delicioso. So if you’re ever in need of some freshly ground organic spices, check out the Teeny Tiny Spice Co. of Vermont. It’s a tad on the pricey side, but sometimes you get what you pay for.

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Everyone knows soft drinks by one name or another, but do you know how much waste soft drinks contribute? About 131 billion cans are produced in the U.S. each year (only around 65% of those are recycled), and of the soft drink plastic bottles, only 24% are recycled. Gadzooks!

Not only that, but soft drinks, even though they cost pennies per gallon to make, cost you many times that amount. Why are they so expensive?

So you probably can figure that disposable soft drink cans and bottles are not the way to go. They waste plastic and aluminum, not to mention all the shipping and transportation for those materials. What are you to do if you want to save money and “go green”, as people are apt to say, but you simply can’t bear to be without your precious fizzy drinks?

SodaStream to the rescue. What the heck is SodaStream?, I hear you thinking inside your mind. Welp, it’s a company that sells sparkling water kits. They were charitable enough to send me a sample kit. Here it be.

What’s in the Homemade Soft Drink Kit?

• Penguin Carbonator
• Glass Bottles to make the carbonated drinks in
• Flavors
• CO² container

Basically these kits include a hand-powered machine that injects carbon dioxide into water, thereby making it carbonated. They also have a veritable cornucopia of different flavors you can put into the carbonated water, from sugary soft drink syrups to a wide variety of extracts (orange, berries, lemon-lime, etc.).

I got it about a month ago, and I’ve been making carbonated drinks just about every day. I’ve tried all the flavors I have, and there are a ton more I might one day order and try, but I’ma also try to make my own soft drink flavors.

So if you’d like to cut down on your plastic bottle and aluminum can waste, but you for some reason are unwilling to give up your beloved soft drinks, then I recommend you look into SodaStream.

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So I decided to take the veggie burger plunge and use my humble cooking “skills” to craft a mouth-watering black bean burger. But first, an eco-footnote…

It takes a LOT more resources to get a pound of hamburger meat than to make a vegetarian bean burger. GoVeg (a completely unbiased website) had this to say on the matter…

It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. A totally vegetarian diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year.

Gadzooks! Even if those numbers are skewed some, getting meat uses a heck of a lot of water.

Alright, enough with the eco-footprint lesson. Moving on to the…

Black Bean Burger Recipe

This simple veggie burger recipe (which makes 4 servings) calls for…

• 2 peppers (jalapeño, cayenne, or banana)
• About 8 teaspoons of olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 shallots
• 2 cups of cooked, drained black beans (a 29oz. can is a just about right)
• 2/3 cup quick-cooking oats
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Chop up the peppers (I used homegrown cayennes and banana peppers), shallots, and garlic. Use scissors for that extra manly touch.

Sauté the chopped-up peppers, garlic, and shallots in olive oil for about 5 minutes.

Put the fried vittles in a bowl, along with the black beans, mayonnaise, oregano, and salt n’ pepa.

Heck, while you’re at it, add the oats, as well.

Mash all the ingredients together with all your might. Take out your inner rage on that mashing. Make those ingredients pay.

Refrigerate the ingredients for about half an hour. Take this time to reflect on your day.

Alright, now form patties with this bean glop. Put some olive oil in a pan and gently place those veggie burger patties in said pan.

Fry them for about 5 minutes on each side. They should look a little something like this:

Congratulations, you’ve just made homemade black bean burgers! Put the veggie burger on a bun and move it toward your mouth.

Final Thoughts

The black bean burger was good, but didn’t taste anything close to a hamburger. It’s not bad, it just doesn’t have that special cow flavor.

If you have a better recipe for veggie burgers, feel free as a bird to let me know and I’ll try it out.

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1. Buy a Kraft Foods brand product from this list.

2. Scrawl your name and address on a 3×5 card. Sound out any big words.

3. Stuff that card and your original receipt (with the Kraft Foods brand item’s price circled) in an envelope.

4. Send that envelope to:
Every Day with Rachael Ray Magazine
16 East 34th Street
14th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Attn: Kraft Foods Promotion

5. Twiddle thumbs and prepare for the imminent arrival of a free reusable tote bag that’ll allow you to quit using disposable plastic bags.

You can only get one free bag per household. Also, this offer is only valid during May, so don’t delay, act today!

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From the incomparable Onion.

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So as not to be a complete scrub, I bought a cup o’ coffee there, insisting that the coffee wench use my handy reusable mug I had brought instead of one of those wasteful, disposable styrofoam cups.

To my surprise, she gave me a 15% discount for using my own reusable mug. She said she was only supposed to give a 10% discount for this, but she didn’t feel like that was enough. I thanked her profusely for this.

If every coffee place gave a big discount for people who brought in their own cups, think of how many disposable paper or styrofoam cups wouldn’t get used once, then thrown away.

So next time you’re going out for some coffee, try bringing your own mug and asking for a discount. If they don’t have one, suggest it (without being a jerk about it). If there’s a monetary incentive to bring your own cup, more and more people will do it.

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