Damn the Rain Forest. I Paid for It and I Want It.

Let's say...

A cafe I frequent charges $1 for a cup of grog in a new cup. So far so good.

The same cafe charges 10¢ for an empty grog cup. Still good. They gotta pay for them, so should I.

During the day, if I reuse my cup, they charge me 90¢ for my grog. Life is fair and all is right with the world.

However, the first cup of the day, even if I am reusing my cup from yesterday, is $1, full price. Now I'm feeling groggy.

I've recently been reviewing this in my mind after reading an article at Herculodge& on 8 types of pride . I think that article needs a #9, the "I deserve it" pride.


If we are environmentally conscious (I try to be), we do the right thing - we reuse an old cup and pay as if we were getting a new cup. This is easy when the amount is small; if it's larger, and our ethic remains unchanged, it's more difficult.

The notion that "I'm gonna get mine because I paid for it" is a childish one from the days when we would cry over sharing a toy whether we wanted to play with it or not; it's ours and you can't have it.

But if everyone reached the same level of understanding, the cafe doesn't need to charge 10¢ for nothing and I don't need to use a new cup. The very same exchange of goods and money has occurred and we've saved a tree.

But that extra 10¢ shows up on someone's ledger and shaves a little off the bottom line somewhere. In fact, they are probably looking at the 10¢ discount throughout the day as a cost rather than a costless value-add.

Sometimes doing the right thing costs you money, makes money for someone else, or otherwise disadvantages you to someone else's advantage.

The biggest hurdle isn't swallowing your pride when you're getting shorted, but watching someone else get rewarded for nothing, which of course has application beyond paper cups.