A friend asked me a question: “Why does there exist together plastic and paper cup in fast food restaurants? You surely know that by producing and using only 1 kind of material, businessmen can reduce cost. So, why are they using at the same time plastic and paper cup?”
To answer the question, first, we have to make clear what drinks are contained in plastic cup and paper cup?
I had a small research around some fast food stores in HCM city in order to find the answer. and here is the result:
1/ With paper cup: coke [ice of course], hot drinks [like tea, coffee, milk], lemonade [ice]
2/ With plastic cup: milk [ice], ice-cream, milkshake, cream-shake, color drinks.
As you can see, nearly all hot drinks are contained in paper cup. It seems that hot temperature may have some impact on plastic. Or at least, it is what sale man believes that people think. However, I do not think 70-80 degree Celsius will be likely to cause plastic to release some harmful chemicals. Another reason related with the heat is that people may find it inconvenient to hold a plastic cup containing hot coffee. There is no doubt that paper absorbs heat better than plastic does. Therefore, if fast food restaurants’ owners want to satisfy consumers, they have to use paper cup for hot drinks.
While paper cup has some physical advantages, plastic cup is used mostly for economic purposes. One of paper cup’s weaknesses is that paper cannot be seen through. If we look again at the research, we can notice that most of drinks related with kids are contained in plastic cup. From iced milk to ice-cream, cream-shake, ...kid drinks are rarely poured into paper cup. There must be a reason why people invented coloring chemicals used in food and beverage. Those unhealthy chemicals are used mainly to attract people’s eyes, especially kids’. Our childhoods are filled with rainbow and flower. Kids love colorful things. We adult can control ourselves not to succumb to the temptation from colors. But, kids cannot. When a kid sees another one drinking an iced red cream-shake in a plastic cup, he will surely demand his parents to buy him one. To kids, those red and green drinks filled with iced are so sexy. If those drinks are contained in paper cup, which cannot be seen through, how can they attract kids? One may argue that iced coke is also able to attract large amount of consumers, why is it contained in paper cup? The argument is rational. In fact, in some fast food restaurants, coke is still contained in glasses. However, because glasses demands high fixed cost at the beginning, it is no longer used widely now. Moreover, more and more people now do not eat at the restaurant but take away instead. Therefore, it is more wisely to give consumers paper cup than glasses. Although consumers prefer glasses to paper, sale man has to choose to use only paper in order to reduce cost. But it still remains that why they do not use plastic cup to contain coke. As we have known, plastic cup is used mainly to attract kids. This function leads to 3 characteristics of plastic: be able to be seen through, small and having inverted triangle shape. The first characteristic is explained above. About small, I have never seen any plastic cup used in fast food restaurant that is over 500ml. I am not sure about the reasons. But I guess that milk and cream-shake and other kids drink are relatively more costly than coke. However, the price of those drinks cannot be too high, because kids cannot and do not pay for that. Their parents pay, and they do not want to pay too much for those drinks. Therefore, producer believes that it is quite unnecessary to make big plastic cup used in fast food restaurants. On the contrary, adults are able to pay for a little more coke. So, coke is contained in paper cup which has various sizes. About the inverted triangle shape, I believe such design is useful in containing some specific drinks such as milk shakes, cream-shakes, ... and in attracting kids. With coke, there is no need for that.
And finally, one more plus for plastic comes from environment aspect. Many people believe that paper is more environment-friendly than plastic. However, it is somewhat not true. Due to a research [ “Paper Vs. Plastic Bags?”] by Rachel Decker and Anders Graff of Lawrence University, the making of paper can waste many thousands of gallons of water, as can the recycling of paper. The human and mechanical efforts and costs are very high, not forgetting the physical cost to loggers and those who work around the numerous chemicals. Plastic is, by comparison, efficient and low energy to produce, and, easily and efficiently recycled. Plastic reduces, recycles marvelously, and in that, is reused. [More information at http://karlzed.wordpress.com/. Link to the research: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0Bz2cvdwxEoKRNWM1YzNhZDMtOTYyMC00N2EzLWI3MTYtNGY0NDU4M2RiNDJk&hl=en_US]. Now, the producers have one more incentive to produce plastic.
In conclusion, we can see that both plastic and paper have disadvantages and advantages. Because one’s advantages cannot offset its disadvantages, neither of them can dominate the market. If human cannot find out a new material which can combine all the goods and eliminate all the bads of plastic and paper, we will still see them existing together in a fast food restaurant.
To answer the question, first, we have to make clear what drinks are contained in plastic cup and paper cup?
I had a small research around some fast food stores in HCM city in order to find the answer. and here is the result:
1/ With paper cup: coke [ice of course], hot drinks [like tea, coffee, milk], lemonade [ice]
2/ With plastic cup: milk [ice], ice-cream, milkshake, cream-shake, color drinks.
As you can see, nearly all hot drinks are contained in paper cup. It seems that hot temperature may have some impact on plastic. Or at least, it is what sale man believes that people think. However, I do not think 70-80 degree Celsius will be likely to cause plastic to release some harmful chemicals. Another reason related with the heat is that people may find it inconvenient to hold a plastic cup containing hot coffee. There is no doubt that paper absorbs heat better than plastic does. Therefore, if fast food restaurants’ owners want to satisfy consumers, they have to use paper cup for hot drinks.
While paper cup has some physical advantages, plastic cup is used mostly for economic purposes. One of paper cup’s weaknesses is that paper cannot be seen through. If we look again at the research, we can notice that most of drinks related with kids are contained in plastic cup. From iced milk to ice-cream, cream-shake, ...kid drinks are rarely poured into paper cup. There must be a reason why people invented coloring chemicals used in food and beverage. Those unhealthy chemicals are used mainly to attract people’s eyes, especially kids’. Our childhoods are filled with rainbow and flower. Kids love colorful things. We adult can control ourselves not to succumb to the temptation from colors. But, kids cannot. When a kid sees another one drinking an iced red cream-shake in a plastic cup, he will surely demand his parents to buy him one. To kids, those red and green drinks filled with iced are so sexy. If those drinks are contained in paper cup, which cannot be seen through, how can they attract kids? One may argue that iced coke is also able to attract large amount of consumers, why is it contained in paper cup? The argument is rational. In fact, in some fast food restaurants, coke is still contained in glasses. However, because glasses demands high fixed cost at the beginning, it is no longer used widely now. Moreover, more and more people now do not eat at the restaurant but take away instead. Therefore, it is more wisely to give consumers paper cup than glasses. Although consumers prefer glasses to paper, sale man has to choose to use only paper in order to reduce cost. But it still remains that why they do not use plastic cup to contain coke. As we have known, plastic cup is used mainly to attract kids. This function leads to 3 characteristics of plastic: be able to be seen through, small and having inverted triangle shape. The first characteristic is explained above. About small, I have never seen any plastic cup used in fast food restaurant that is over 500ml. I am not sure about the reasons. But I guess that milk and cream-shake and other kids drink are relatively more costly than coke. However, the price of those drinks cannot be too high, because kids cannot and do not pay for that. Their parents pay, and they do not want to pay too much for those drinks. Therefore, producer believes that it is quite unnecessary to make big plastic cup used in fast food restaurants. On the contrary, adults are able to pay for a little more coke. So, coke is contained in paper cup which has various sizes. About the inverted triangle shape, I believe such design is useful in containing some specific drinks such as milk shakes, cream-shakes, ... and in attracting kids. With coke, there is no need for that.
And finally, one more plus for plastic comes from environment aspect. Many people believe that paper is more environment-friendly than plastic. However, it is somewhat not true. Due to a research [ “Paper Vs. Plastic Bags?”] by Rachel Decker and Anders Graff of Lawrence University, the making of paper can waste many thousands of gallons of water, as can the recycling of paper. The human and mechanical efforts and costs are very high, not forgetting the physical cost to loggers and those who work around the numerous chemicals. Plastic is, by comparison, efficient and low energy to produce, and, easily and efficiently recycled. Plastic reduces, recycles marvelously, and in that, is reused. [More information at http://karlzed.wordpress.com/. Link to the research: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0Bz2cvdwxEoKRNWM1YzNhZDMtOTYyMC00N2EzLWI3MTYtNGY0NDU4M2RiNDJk&hl=en_US]. Now, the producers have one more incentive to produce plastic.
In conclusion, we can see that both plastic and paper have disadvantages and advantages. Because one’s advantages cannot offset its disadvantages, neither of them can dominate the market. If human cannot find out a new material which can combine all the goods and eliminate all the bads of plastic and paper, we will still see them existing together in a fast food restaurant.
Kz
August, 2011
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