Ethylene and Benz-aldehyde are mixed and react to make polyethylene. The creation of the polyethylene layer also uses a lot of energy. By the end of harvesting and preparing the raw materials to make a paper cup about “ 9000-12000 kg of steam, 960-1000 kw/h of power from electricity and 50m3 cooling water” will be used per ton of raw materials (Hocking Paper 3).
Polyethylene has a high melting point, 248 to 266 ☏, which makes it ideal for cups that are used for hot liquids (Polyethylene 7). The polyethylene layer is made out of polyethylene, the most common type of plastic, which is made out of a mixture of ethylene and Benz-aldehyde (Paxton 1). The 10% post-consumer polyethylene paper cup has also received FDA approval for 10% pose consumer fiber (PCF) in 2006 and won the National Recycling Coalition’s annual award (FDA 6). Starbuck’s paper cup manufacturer, International Paper, actually has a patent to have 10% post-consumer fiber in a polyethylene paper cup. The paper layer consists of 90% virgin paper board and 10% post-consumer paper (Luna 8). Starbucks paper cups have two main components, a paper layer and a polyethylene layer. The first part of the Starbucks paper cup lifecycle starts with the gathering and preparing of raw materials. For the production of polyethylene cups, the majority of the transportation is done with kinetic energy by machines such as boats and trucks, which tend to use chemical energy through the use of fossil fuels. To get to all these different people, different means of transportations is used. You need the people who harvest the raw materials, the people who process the raw materials, the people who then convert the processed raw materials into the product, the people who sell the product, and the people who take the product to a transfer station once the product is used. The lifecycle of the polyethylene paper cub is long and requires the help of many different people. The lifecycle of the polyethylene paper cup is as follows… This 1.5% of paper cups is not just any paper cups they are polyethylene paper cups, a special type of cup consisting of polyethylene and paper. Starbucks sells around 8.2 million paper cups of coffee per day, which contributes to around 1.5% of all the paper cup waste in the world. Customers have this great experience of interacting with store partners and the beverage” (Kamentez 6). "Cups are our icon, our billboard, part of the ethos of the company. With an iconic company, comes a powerful logo, a green logo with the iconic white siren/twin tailed mermaid, printed on millions of cups and recognized all around the world.
Starbucks cups are the lifeblood of the Starbucks Company. And with a large coffee house chain, results in the use of millions of paper cups every year, which requires a lot of energy to go from raw materials to a cup to in the hands of coffee lovers around the world. The Starbucks Coffee Company is officially the largest coffee house chain in the world, serving over 50 million customers weekly through over 16,000 stores in 61 different countries (Rodden 12).