Edible drinking cups

Better than a cup that is recyclable or reusable, how about one that is compostable and edible?

These cups are made from agar, an extract from reg algae, frequently used in Asian desserts and biology experiments.

According to this material data about Agar:

• It melts at 176F so holding it in your hand shouldn't be a problem. 
• It is insoluble in cold water 
• Is "completely resistent to the enzymes applied in the food technology area" ... which I take to mean it won't dissolve or react with things you'd want to eat or drink.

So as long as you're not looking to drink hot coffee or tea from it and aren't going to let it sit outside for too long (agar is a popular substrate for growing bacterial colonies), agar is a widely available, non-endangered plant product, so it does seem to solve that part of the "green" equation.

However, this material clearly has some problems with large scale use in an office:

• Agar does not fold or compress without losing it's structural integrity so it would be difficult to transport or store in large numbers.
• Agar is a nutrient so it probably needs to be refrigerated, further adding to the transportation and storage costs... unless you brew and mold your own cup on demand... which would be novel if not very efficient.
• Agar is one of the more expensive gelatines, so compared to a foldable paper cup, it would be difficult to justify the cost per unit to give away by the hundreds and thousands per months.

oh well... it makes an interesting story.

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

How many superheroes does San Francisco need?

In the spirit of strange questions google might ask...something to get you thinking a little bit.

How many superheroes are needed in San Francisco?
Let's assume that the superheroes are needed to fight crime. All of it. In that case you'd need as many superheroes as it would take to stop all the crime in the city.

If you look at the FBI's Uniform Crime Report for 2009 you find that San Francisco had ~38,700 crimes in the first 6 months of 2009. That is ~215 crimes per day.
If you assume that all crimes occur at night (say between 8 pm and 5 am), that is ~2.5min per crime.
If you assume that the superhero instantly knows when and where a crime occurs and takes 1 min per crime to stop the evil-doers, that leaves ~1.5 min to travel between crimes.
If you assume that the superhero can fly as "fast as a speeding bullet" and that the bullet in question is from a 45cal Colt Revolver, that's 661 mph or ~11 miles/min. So in 1.5 minutes the hero could go ~16.6 miles (without even a sonic boom to wake people up).
San Francisco land area is roughly 7 miles x 7miles, which means that one superhero could easily cover all the crimes in the city.

So the answer is: One superhero.