Disposable Coasters and Environmental Trends
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
David Artsmith - Disposable beverage coasters are generally used in bars and restaurants as a cheap and effective way of keeping condensation off of the tables. They can consist of any inexpensive material, although usually it is something that absorbs water. The most common disposable coaster is a cocktail napkin slipped under a beverage.
The good news is that most of the materials that would make a good disposable coaster are biodegradable, such as paper or cork. That means even though they create a lot of unnecessary trash, it won’t take much for nature to re-incorporate them back into the environment.
The real problem with these beverage coasters is that they are a symptom of a philosophical error in our society’s way of thinking. Standing at the threshold of mechanization, we are a society that produces, and consumes. It’s a matter of simple convenience, disposable items don’t have to be washed, they don’t have to be taken care of, and they can simply be tossed away.
In this way, our culture has become a mass producer of garbage, albeit temporarily useful garbage. And instead of developing new thoughts and innovations, we instead waste our time with the mindless production of consumables.
Unfortunately this is a problem which is fairly inherent to the way the world works. The reason it exists, is because it is simply cheaper to build disposable things.
There are also economic reasons. Companies want us to buy many products over the course of our lives, rather than simply purchasing one product. Even if the one product is priced higher, the payments for disposable drink coasters made over the course of a life will still add up to be larger, and more viable for a companies long term growth.
As mechanization continues, disposables will become easier, cheaper, and more readily available. Instead of looking for the next great drink coaster, we are going to search endlessly for the cheapest, ugliest, and most disposable coaster. In this way we will make our world ugly, and pathetic. In effect, we will be developing a disposable world.
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