agonyaunt | Ask a Manager: My Boss Uses Too Much Styrofoam

I work in a very small office (three of us and our boss). My boss uses a styrofoam cup every morning to drink his coffee. I believe it’s a different one each time (from his gym, where he picks up coffee each morning). Would it be inappropriate to suggest that he might switch to something reusable like a Yeti cup or something similar? I also get that there’s a debate about buying something that’s more resource-intensive at the front-end versus using disposable, but relatively less resource-intensive. It just kills me every time I see him using one.

What kind of relationship do you have with him? With a lot of bosses, if you have good rapport you could just say, “Would you ever get a reusable cup to carry with you? The environmental impact of styrofoam is so bad.” Or if you’re willing, you could even give him one as a gift — although you’d have to be okay with the possibility that he might not use it and the styrofoam would keep showing up.

Another option could be to suggest that the office buy company-branded (or even not company-branded) travel mugs for everyone.
But with all of these approaches, he might not change the habit and there’s not a ton of room to keep pushing if that’s the case. Ultimately he gets to decide what kind of cup he’s going to use.

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This is where I admit I have a pretty jaundiced view of people whose environmentalism is practiced in policing others' actions. (I was going to post a C&F letter here written by someone judging her friends for having multiple children, but it made me too angry.) So many people use environmentalism as a left wing substitute for religion that can give them an excuse to judge, hector, and deprive others to their hearts' content and still tell themselves it's all in the service of a Higher Power. This letter reminded me of everyone who's told me I should give away my personal library/cut off my hair/immediately become a vegan/be forcibly sterilized/etc etc etc for the sake of the environment.

Of course I'm not going to go the other direction and deliberately pollute in response like some nimnuls threaten to, but, well... if I were LW's boss I might or might not get a reusable cup but I would definitely start considering at what point I would need to shut LW down in their telling me how to live my life, because they definitely will come up with more and more Changes To Make on Behalf Of The World. Changing one's own actions is about benefiting the environment. Seeking to change others' is about control.

Edited 2020-01-29 16:43 (UTC)

Okay, just out of morbid curiosity, you wouldn't have a link to the multiple kids one, would you? Or a rough time that it was posted? I promise not to post it here.

I found a syndication of the column here:

https://twnews.us/us-news/dear-care-and-feeding-how-do-we-stop-our-adopted-daughters-from-fighting-over-a-modeling-internship

It's the second letter, about "Mind your business," but/and all of the ones in that column, except for the kid who forgets to say 'thank you', are doozies.

I almost considered posting the modelling internship one, and then decided not to although I - like Jamilah - would REALLY like to know whether LW has been raising the daughters as if they are literal twins and not metaphotical "sisters of the same age' twins.

OH GOD THAT ONE *triple facepalms*

My concern is if the fake names reflect the real names and they really did give one kid a very Western name and one kid a very Indian name. It's an odd naming choice... and note, "Marie" is the one with the modelling gig.

Edited 2020-01-30 05:11 (UTC)

Yeah, that made me really uncomfortable even if they don't reflect the real names, because it gave me a "this twin meets more Western standards of beauty" vibe.

Well said!

*nod* Tangentially, one advantage of where I lived in New York is that I could shut down most such criticism by pointing out that their carbon footprint was worse than mine, simply because I lived in a multi-story apartment building and traveled almost entirely on foot and by subway.

That wasn't why I made those choices, but it was nice to know, as well as nice to have in my pocket as an argument.

If whether to use one styrofoam cup per day is someone's main question in this direction, they're ignoring larger issues, deliberately or otherwise. This LW could usefully divert her energy and irritation toward political action.

my jaundice matches yours, although I my jaundice is also made more powerful by arguments I've had with the straw police.

If the LW wants to help the world, they should figure out how much time they would spend arguing with their boss, and spend that time instead: writing to local politicians and going to community meetings about green power / public transit / bike lanes / emisssions policies / investment of municipal funds in fossil fuels; donating to a group that works on those things; replacing some incandescents with LEDs; etc. Systemic issues which aren't about pseudoreligious shaming and which actually will make a difference.

Oh man, I am so angry at the straw police. I hear you.

Or perhaps you could contact the gym and see if they could start stocking paper cups and insulating sleeves for their coffee, if that's where the cups are coming from? He may be making the immediate decision about regular cup vs. disposable, but who picks the type of disposable?

I think there may still be a stash of styrofoam cups in this house. We won't be getting more, but I am biased to use the existing thing rather than discard unused.

I know that I have good intentions and a tendency to forget travel cups until they're moldy if I'm somewhere that I can't immediately rinse them when finished, because I have used my attention on other things.

If LW lived in my city, which has a Styrofoam ban, the solution would be simple: report the offending gym (there's a handy on-line form) and leave it to the municipal inspectors to deal with. And, really, even if it doesn't: reaching out to the gym (which is presumably giving hundreds of people Styrofoam cups) is a much more potentially effective approach than going after one person who happens to using them. Structural and institutional problems need structural and institutional solutions.

Edited 2020-01-29 17:46 (UTC)

But it's so much more fun to self-righteously hassle individuals! What is this Earth logic you suggest?

On the plus side, once LW gets fired they'll have a lot more time to agitate for their municipality to ban styrofoam altogether.

you win! 😂

If it "just kills" them to see someone using a styrofoam cup, they should count their blessings they don't have worse problems to focus on. Work for systemic change and leave people alone, but if this is your foolhardy way of punching up, consider that some people want to be boss so they don't have to deal with anyone else telling them what to do, go for it on this small thing, and be prepared for the consequences, because you obviously need more problems in your life.

Ask a Manager: My Boss Uses Too Much Styrofoam

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