Epic Opus

In this auspicious year of Two Thousand and Ten, we celebrate what shall forever be known as the 40^th Earth Day[1] of all time.

This is post is a dissection of the letters, words, numbers and symbols found on my coffee cup lid. <Spoiler>: some relate to our hypocritical effort to improve the environment despite buying disposable paper and plastic cups for single use purposes.

First, the one that you, or the person beside you whom you asked, knew about: the International Recycling Symbol. In case I’ve overestimated your knowledge of basic information, I’m referring to the 6 surrounded by triangle of arrows floating above ‘PS’– it was probably devised by a person on salvia.

The 6 and PS refer to polystyrene[2] – an aromatic polymer discovered in 1839 (whoa!) that sat around for about 90 years until a few simple experiments made it commercially viable. Since then, the polymer's integrated itself into almost all parts of consumer package due in part to its inability to biodegrade and resistance to photolysis – properties which have both terrorized the environment and simplified our lives.[3]

“CAUTION CONTENTS HOT.” That bit of information is courtesy of the Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants coffee case. Now, even if you didn’t know what the international symbol for recycling was, this story should be familiar to you as it was the only one from 1994 to impact the future in such a way that restaurants, legally, must regard the general population as idiots. The case involved a 79-year old woman who placed a "defective” (too hot) coffee in her lap, subsequently spilled it, and suffered 3^rd degree burns to six percent of her body. McDonalds eventually settled for an undisclosed amount less than $600,000. Since then, several similar lawsuits have been filed, but failed as a judge pointed out that hot coffee you’ve purchased is “not unreasonably dangerous.”[4]

Why is a company called International Paper manufacturing polystyrene products? Well, following a chaotic 17 paper mill merger in 1898, it lost significant market share in their primary business – newsprint – thanks to low-cost Canadian newsprint flooding the United States during 1913 (yay us!). After that blow, it experienced the economic downs of The Great Depression and ups of manufacturing products for Armed Forces during World War 2. During the war they found their strength: packaging. However, company restructuring didn’t occur until the late-1960s and, even then, it experimented a lot with specialty paper and pulp products that didn’t strategically fit. The diversification attempt was considered a disaster and it would be twenty years before they began to look into products which strengthened their packaging division. This is how they became the manufacturer of my coffee lid.[5]

I couldn’t find out what the 29 stood for so I’m assuming it’s the seventh Lucas number.[6]