The essence of a drinking cup

How would you rebuild a disposable drinking cup if you had sustainability in mind?

• minimum material per cup
• use of renewable resources
• use of recyclable materials
• low cost
• small storage and transportation foot print
• high packing density (less restocking labor costs)

It might look a lot like this:

A paper cup from Taiwan.

Opened to hold water. You would hold this and drink from it.

This is the dispenser next to the water cooler. That is a HUGE number of cups (100s) in a tiny space. 

Compare to the ~15 styrofoam cups in this picture stacked to roughly the same height as the paper cup dispenser box.

This won't work for hot drinks and it's difficult to use a single cup for more than a few drinks, but for it's intended purpose: getting a quick drink of water, it's quite effective.

It would be better to not use disposable cups at all but...

stacked Styrofoam cups photo credit: Dan Meyer @ http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=69