A question for the ages

What is the best material for a drink from a fast food restaurant at the drive-thru?

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bhsup

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So yeah, what with Iran going through the Suez, Australia facing a leadership crisis, the PRC planning its 2040 invasion of America, and other critical issues facing the world, I felt it important to touch on a question that we all must surely be pondering.

What is the best material for a drink from a fast food restaurant at the drive-thru??

Styrofoam - Doesn't sweat except on the very hottest days, but least durable. My dog jumped up between the bucket seats once and punctured one with her claws, sending Coke pouring down through my center console.

Wax coated paper - Sweats some, but not as much as plastic. More durable than styrofoam, but not as durable as plastic. It is my preferred container.

Plastic - Most durable, but sweats like a pig, especially in the summer. Very messy for the cup holders.
 
Plastic is best. Paper is good but is less reliable.

Polystyrene foam (yeah check it) lasts forever, kills animals, and can't be recycled, so it would have to be able to turn water to wine to be worth using for damn cups. (And it can't.)
 
LucyDuke said:
Plastic is best. Paper is good but is less reliable.

Polystyrene foam (yeah check it) lasts forever, kills animals, and can't be recycled, so it would have to be able to turn water to wine to be worth using for damn cups. (And it can't.)
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This - though I prefer paper to plastic. The cups don't need to be so durable, unless the culture of consumers change towards keeping cups or bringing their own cups to fast food restaurants.

Any decent educated human being with a shred of morality should avoid polystyrene foam as much as possible.
 
I'm really not a fan of post-mix soft drink and hate the fact that to get a good deal at the drive through you really need to take a "meal deal" with a drink . I usually have a ready supply of drink at home .

But pressed to pick one I'll take waxed paper
 
If I'm out and about, waxed paper since it's easy to dispose of and not styrofoam. If I'm getting something from the drivethru and eating it at home, I prefer plastic since I can hoard the cups to re-use some other time.
 
Waxed paper, easily. Styrofoam feels like I'm part of Team Evil. Waxed paper collapses easily, and so can be crushed. Some places make biodegradable wax paper cups, so you can tear them (to expose the innards) and then bury them in your garden. I'm not familiar with plastic cups, but feel like I've had them when I get a big slurpee.
 
Plastic cups are re-usable. Though blood pressure keeps me away from fast food these days, I used to use one of those "big gulp" cups as a drinking glass for a while, washing them like a normal cup. After a while the cup becomes useless in some way or another..it might be crushed or punctured. Such things happen.

Given its potential for biodegradability, however, and the fact that plastic and foam cups are made of materials we cannot replenish, waxed paper cups seem the best alternative if you must go through a drivethrough. For my own part, I avoid any restaurant that doesn't offer drinking glasses.
 
Styrofoam is evil.

I dont know of the differences between paper & plastic, though.
 
The compostable "plastic"
 
Paper, it's the most biodegradable and recyclable.
 
I don't buy the stuff. I've heard that the plastic coating they use can cause thyroid problems.

Recent studies of small groups of diverse volunteers (men and women) in Europe, the US and Canada showed that everyone, including the chief of a remote indigenous tribe in Northern Québec, had one characteristic in common: without their knowing, their bodies had absorbed a complex chemical cocktail of dozens of different synthetic substances.

So how did these chemicals get there? Very simply, as the accumulated by-product of a modern life, of breathing industrial emissions, eating treated food, and using endless consumer products — plastic microwave bags, fast-food containers, nail polish, computer casings, to name just a few. None of these volunteers were living near a toxic dump or exhibiting any unusual behavior or disease.

Of all the manmade toxins in our environment, we now realize that the most ubiquitous (the ones used to create plastics, pesticides, cleansers, dyes, flame retardants and white paper, among other products) may be the most worrisome. We identify these as endocrine disruptor chemicals (EDC’s), as they have been shown to mimic the action of hormones when absorbed by humans and wildlife.
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http://www.womentowomen.com/detoxification/endocrinedisruptors.aspx
 
This backs up my hypothesis that a huge proportion of people are hypothyroid in the modern age.
 
Cutlass said:
Waxed paper. Gets the job done, and has the least long term impact.
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Agree with that he said. Recyclable and decent material.
 
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