Reusable Coffee Mugs

I work on Bay Street in downtown Toronto.
Everyone drinks coffee. I don't think you can walk 50 metres without encountering either a Tim Hortons, Second Cup, Starbucks, Timothy's or many other food retailers that sell freshly brewed coffee.

In every garbage can in the city and office building, coffee cups dominate. Although almost all the shops have moved away from styrofoam into a more "sustainable, biodegradable and environmentally friendly" paper cup, we can still do better.

I have been using a refillable stainless steel desk mug (with plastic lid) for a few months now and it is great. All the retailers always gladly fill my huge cup to the top for the price of a small coffee and at Starbucks, they even give me a $0.10 discount.

Now I get to have my wake-up juice without the guilty landfill. It's awesome. Imagine if everyone did that. Trees saved (although, more on this topic another time), energy saved (for manufacturing and delivering the cups and the packaging associated with delivery - plastic bags and carboard boxes). Would that be so bad?