Going Green Makes Palms Red

Have you heard? Green is in. Everyone is recycling and wearing Keens and slurping fair trade chai lattes. Good thing I'm here to tell you it's not all rainbows and peace signs in the Green Universe. Oh no, it's dangerous out there.

Take Starbucks for example. Most greensters abhor the 'Bucks, because they're afraid they'll be labeled consumerist pigs or forfeit their membership to the co-op. This is completely stupid, because I spent half my life in Seattle (the birthplace and Mecca of greensters) where even hardcore hippies go to Starbucks, and they like it. But Starbucks is still afraid of grossing a krillion dollars instead of a jillion dollars, so they start shilling fair trade coffee and making their cups out of recycled paper and all that hoodoo. I'm not mocking them, I really do think that every little bit counts, I just don't like it when it interferes with my wellbeing.

Today I went through the Starbucks drive through, and when I got my venti-soy-no-foam-chai there was no cardboard sleeve. It was not double-cupped either, which would be less eco-friendly but would still save my widdle hands from the shock of having a naked hot cup of coffee thrust into them.

Lots of places are doing this now. They don't give you the sleeve, and instead there's a huge tray full of them for you to take "if you need one." Uh, yeah I need one, because strangely enough this coffee is HOT and it's in a cup made of PAPER. If you go through the drive through, they just give you the sleeve because obviously you cannot just reach inside the store and grab one of the 50 million lying around. Today though, I was left to drown in the flames of hot spiced tea with steamed milk. Oh my bad! None of those words even sound hot! How silly of me!

I get what Starbucks is trying to do, but they're failing miserably. It doesn't matter if people choose not to take a sleeve if you've already made millions of them. And I'd love to not take one, but hotness is still a thing, so I'm going to vote for keeping my palm skin. But I do have a solution! I've decided to get one of these adorable knitted coffee cup sleeves from the Karma Crochet Etsy shop!

 Baaah! Adorable! And they make them in four different colors! I'd say "collect them all," but they're $12.00 each and the point is to re-use, right? I plan on keeping this sucker in my bag at all times, and whipping it out daily to "cozy" up my coffee. Hah! Get it?!

Anyway, I think this could be a HUGE moneymaker for the 'Bucks and other coffee shops. Imagine making little knit sweaters with your logo on them, or even making them to look like the cardboard sleeves, but they'd be in sweatshirt material or something reusable and comfy. They could make a killing and be truly eco-minded. Until then...I'll let you know how the knitted cozy works out. Fingers crossed!