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The better-than-thou of reusable cups

I have to write a post today before getting to my own writing. I don’t know why. I just have to. So I guess I’ll write about something that melted my brain this morning. No Impact Man’s nugget-of-5th-avenue-wisdom post today showing off his jolly reuseable cup!

I got all confused looking at NIM’s mason jar. I got confused because I was thinking what’s wrong with multitasking the old portable coffee thermal tumbler? Doesn’t NIM have one of those from his pre-experiment days? Not that I would ever use my tumbler for anything other than coffee as I could probably sandblast it and any water I put in there would probably taste of the residue of holding brew for twelve years. Still, I got confused because I was thinking y’mean NIM doesn’t have from pre-experiment days a plain old handy dandy portable not-just-for-sports water bottle and isn’t it a positive environmental no-impact kind of thing to use that?

“WHY the Mason jar with lid?” I kept thinking. Not that there’s anything wrong with a Mason jar with lid, except it’s kind of clumsy to port around in a bag when you’re out walking, isn’t it?

The only reason I could think of for the Mason jar, in specific, was the cooler-than-thou retro aesthetic touted in the post. Nothing more. Just a matter of coolness aesthetics.

Are there people who will pass over the reusable vessels they already have at home and run out to buy a Mason jar with a sparkling clean lid?

Y’know what I get giddy thinking about? I get giddy imagining people, at home, transferring water from their Fiji (or whatever) water bottles to their ultra cool mason jars and heading out on the town. “Yes, yes, isn’t that just like a human,” I think. You know it’s happening somewhere.

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Juli Kearns

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9 responses to “The better-than-thou of reusable cups”

  1. Jennifer Avatar
    Jennifer

    Oh you know it is!

    Gack.

    Reply
  2. Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man Avatar
    Colin Beavan aka No Impact Man

    But without my better-than-thou of cups, how could you have had your better-than-thou of blog posts?
    All the best,
    Colin aka No Impact Man

    Reply
  3. Susan Och Avatar
    Susan Och

    I actually used a mason jar with lid to carry drinking water a few weeks ago when I was the “lighting technician” at my daughter’s choir concert. I couldn’t find a platic water bottle, although they’re always around when I’m trying to clean the counters off.

    The choir director’s husband said: “Oh, I see you’re still bringing moonshine to school,” which lit up the lightbulb in my brain and I realized that I had found a use for the bottles of corn syrup that I have accumulated while trading fresh produce to my neighbors who get USDA commodities food.

    Yes, they give high fructose corn syrup to poor people. Yes, the choir director’s husband gave me some tips on how to make homemade alchohol taste like oak-barrel aged whiskey. Yes, I thought everyone used jars if they had more company than they had glasses. No. I don’t think NIM is going to be making hootch. But think what he could learn from such a scientific endeavor….

    Reply
  4. Idyllopus Avatar
    Idyllopus

    No Impact Man, and all the best to you! I do hope you’ll return. I have a couple of videos presenting an alternative to plastic party cups that I’ve just posted. Without lights and a camera crew and using only a cheap point and shoot digital camera, the quality’s not so good, but, hey, we tried our best. Kind of. Hope you enjoy it!

    Reply
  5. Jennifer Avatar
    Jennifer

    Oh my…

    Reply
  6. Jim McCulloch Avatar
    Jim McCulloch

    The mason jar thing doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but it reminds me of a story that I may have forgotten to post on my blog, about my father-in-law and my stepdaughter Anna. My father-in-law was wont to drink to excess, and to hide this fact he would put vodka in a mason jar and claim it was water, although why anyone would believe that an elderly fat man with an alcohol problem would be carrying water in a mason jar would elude anyone except perhaps NIM, who in that respect would be a kindred thinker, if not spirit.
    Anyway he would hide these jars in our house so that, in case he was stranded there at some future time without strong drink, he would have a jar of firewater at hand. If he could find it. But of course he always forgot, and we usually found the jars and poured them out the contents. But Anna, who was 13, found one and took it to school with her, no one knows why. Anna doesn’t remember why. She was not a drinker at the age of 13 nor is she now. But she was experimental, and I think she was going to try a bit of it after school, with her friends.
    She remembers that she put it in her locker, and in between classes, as the hall was full of students, hundreds of them, she came back to her locker and carelessly flung it open, having forgotten about the mason jar and its contents. The jar tumbled out and Anna tried to intercept it–one of these slow-motion memories–and it slowly got away from her, and by the time it hit the floor (a very long time, it seemed) the hall was empty except for someone standing next to her, whose shoes were splashed with vodka and the mason jar disintegrated on impact, glass flying everywhere. Looking up to see who the shoes belonged to, she discovered the assistant principal looking down at her.

    There is more to this story but my point here is that mason jars are not a practical personal conveyance for liquids.

    Reply
  7. Idyllopus Avatar
    Idyllopus

    Poor Anna. The assistant principal seems to have had a sixth sense.

    NIM could step back further and go the gourd route. Gourds shatter as well but at least if you’re riding a bike around Manhattan and take a tumble it’s not going to cut one up like a glass. Plus they’re nice and lightweight.

    Reply
  8. Susan Och Avatar
    Susan Och

    Don’t they have drinking fountains anymore?

    Reply
  9. Idyllopus Avatar
    Idyllopus

    Interesting point. No one used to carry around water. Then everyone was carrying around store bought water. Me included. When I was pregnant I became accustomed to carrying water with me everywhere, and though I don’t always now for personal use, H.o.p. always has to have water with him, he’s a huge water drinker and we’ve always carried it in the car for him since he was little.

    If one is no longer dependent on store bought water, the ingrained habit of carrying water may seem unnecessary. It is nice, however, to have a bottle of water when you’re out walking (hydration, gets hot here) or riding around in the car.

    Plus I confess to being one who sometimes worries about the cleanliness of drinking fountains.

    http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_061007_news_drinking_toilet_water.3598ea6d.html

    Reply

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