ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE LAB Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE LAB - Research Paper Example The constituent materials include trees, ink, plastics. The process of making the paper cups uses multiple fuels. 0.11 Kg of CO2 is used when a cup measuring 16 ounce is transported from manufacturing site to the retail outlets. For every cup made and shipped to a coffee outlet 0.09 m2 of natural habitat is lost. However, it costs 0.27 Kg of plant and animal life potential to manufacture and ship the same size of cup to its final destination. Ideally speaking, it would take approximately 1.7 billion cups together with their sleeves to trigger one-potential species extinction (Starbucks web). The cups however, have approximately 10% post-consumer recyclable material. The cups are manufactured using bleached paperboard. This is in accordance to the requirements of FDA regulations. However, the cups are laminated with a polyethene referred to as resin. It is argued that the resin in the paper cups is not environmental friendly. When poorly decomposed, it produces greenhouse gas that is believed to trap more than 20 times the heat trapped by CO2 (Narang web). Coffee is the primary ingredient for coffee drinks. Starbucks consumes approximately 2% of global coffee production. Most of the coffee is sourced through Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) practices. According to the 2010-year report, Starbucks purchased122 million kilograms of coffee out of which 103 million kilograms were purchased through C.A.F.E. guidelines. The coffee is obtained from all parts of the world. However, coffee outlets get their share from the nearest coffee sources. However, transporting coffee from place of production to various stores and disposing various wastes from the outlets produces approximately 81, 000 tons of CO2 (Narang web). Starbucks gets its milk supplies from local dairy firms. For instance, the coffee outlets in China get their milk from milk suppliers from China. There are many milk suppliers and milk companies from which