A new coffee culture is forming in and around San Francisco, California. A growing number of coffeehouses there are barring paper cups. Instead, they are using glass containers or creating "bring your own cup" policies. The movement started among neighborhood cafes in an effort to reduce waste. Now it is gaining support from large businesses in the city—and around the country.
Famous cook Dominique Crenn is opening a cafe in San Francisco next year that will not use to-gabags, throw-away coffee cups or any plastic. Diners who plan to buy a to-go drink from boutique Crenn will be asked to bring their own coffee cups, a spokeswoman said.
The Blue Bottle coffeehouse company uses about 15,000 to-go cups each month at its 70 shops across the U.S. The company recently said it wants to "show our guests and the world that we can get rid of disposable (一次性的) cups".
Blue Bottle plans to stop using paper cups at two of its stores next year. The move is part of a promise to produce "zero waste" by the end of next year.
Larger coffee and fast-food businesses around the U. S. are feeling a sense of urgency (紧急) to be more environmentally friendly, said Bridget Croke. She is with the New York-based investment company Closed Loop Partners. It is working with Starbucks and McDonald's to develop a substitute (替代品) for the disposable coffee cup.
Today's to-go cups for hot drinks are not only made from paper, they also have plastic to prevent leaking. This makes them hard to recycle, Croke said. She admitted that it is not likely that large national food and drink companies will stop using disposable cups totally or ask all customers to bring their own.
So, her company is looking for other solutions. In partnership with Closed Loop, Starbucks and McDonald's paid $10 million to develop the "single-use cup of the future". The result is expected to be recyclable and to break down naturally.
Cultural relics are a part of history, and represent people's cultural treasures. Therefore, it is important for us to pretect . As we know, most cultural relics are really valuable because they have seen history of our country, allows us to have a better understanding of our country's history and culture. We can also learn a lot from our ancestors and feel proud being a Chinese while enjoying these valuable treasures. In addition, we are able to develop tourism and promote the economy when the well (protect) cultural relics are open to the public.
However, some cultural relics are being damaged by people now. For example, buildings carved(雕刻) people's names can be seen here and there. There is no doubt that more precious historical relics (disappear) if people keep destroying them.
Therefore, it is high time that we should take measures to protect cultural relics. To begin with, we can make speeches and put up posters(海报) to educate people important it is to protect cultural relics. Besides, money can be collected to have some buildings (repair).
In a word, is our duty to spare no effort to protect cultural relics.
