Want to stop your wasteful coffee habits?

If you’re like most students at Portland State, you buy some coffee in the morning and then thoughtlessly throw away your paper coffee cup. Well, according to the university program PSU Recycles!, about 1,400 paper coffee cups are thrown away each day, creating a huge amount of waste.

Now there is a way to avoid being a “waster” coffee drinker.

The solution, members of the recycling program believe, is to provide people with non-disposable coffee mugs at $5 each. Laura Pearson and Alisa Kane from PSU Recycles! have already ordered 1,200 of the mugs to be sold in the market in the first floor of Smith Memorial Student Union as well as the student bookstore in the Urban Studies building.

PSU Recycles! looked at other schools around the country with similar programs for guidance on how to make the coffee mug program successful.

Pearson and Kane are hoping to break even with the mugs and said that the program is not for profit.

“If we sell these quickly then we’d like to purchase more,” Pearson said.

The mugs are set to arrive in the upcoming weeks, and PSU Recycles! is looking forward to it.

“I think it’s a good start,” Pearson said about helping the problem of waste on campus.

PSU Recycles! has been on the PSU campus for almost a year now and has already made its mark. The program set up 15 recycling containers around campus that are split up by recyclable material. Barrels have also been set up in numerous places to make it easier for students to recycle rather than create waste.

The program consists of Pearson and Kane along with a gradate assistant who is in charge of eight students who collect the recyclables. The entire program is currently student-run.

Pearson noted that a recent goal of the program involves giving more outreach to students in residence halls where recycling could be increased.

“We’re getting the word out about recycling opportunities around campus,” Pearson said.

PSU Recycles! recently received a grant from the Department of Environmental Quality that they hope will allow the program to grow even more.