So down here in Silicon Valley, it's rather hip to be green and trying to save the environment. At work, we have these "green" coffee paper cups called Ecotainers which are supposed to be good for the environment because they're made of 100% recycled products, and they're biodegradable. From my current experience, I think they probably cause more waste.
So, the day before at work, I filled up my Ecotainer with some warm water and left it on my desk. The following morning, I noticed that a bunch of my papers surrounding my Ecotainer were all wet because the water had soaked through the dang thing. I thought to myself... okay, maybe it's just a flaw in one of these Ecotainers.
I get another Ecotainer and fill it with water. About an hour later, I notice that the desk was getting wet yet again. I don't understand why a cup, designed to hold water was letting water soak through and leak already! I'm all for biodegradable cups, but it shouldn't biodegrade in an hour!
Now I'm experimenting on a double hull design, ie use two Ecotainers. The theory is, once the water soaks through the first Ecotainer, the second one will catch the water. We'll see if my desk is soaking wet when I get into the office tomorrow.
My theory is that they may cause more waste because I can't reuse the green paper cup more than once (since they seem to be a one-shot use), and I end up having to use two cups instead of traditionally one cup.