Now, don’t get me wrong. Tim Horton’s appears to be doing a lot to reduce it’s environmental footprint and I applaud them for that. I took exception, though, with a poster I saw in a Tim Horton’s the other day. Here’s it is (click to enlarge):
The poster depicts a woman throwing a coffee cup into a garbage can while children frolic in the pristine park in the background. And the text predicably says words to the effect of “put litter in its place”. Fine — let’s make sure all the ugliness is put where nobody bothers to look, so that we don’t have to actually think about it. But the subtle thing in this photo not being addressed is the lid on that cup. Tim Horton’s coffee lids are recyclable and I would have thought deliberately so, in order to avoid having them ending up in the dump. Yet here this woman is, blithely tossing it out with the cup (which is unfortunately not recyclable because of the wax coating). My point is that it’s a bad example to be setting when there is no need. The ad should at the very least be reminding people that the lid is recyclable and should not be thrown out if it can at all be avoided.
Which brings to me to the next point. Most Tim Horton’s have special recycling bins for bottles and cans. But how about something specifically for these lids? That seems like a no-brainer to me. Have a small bin with a slot in the side and a sign that says “LIDS GO HERE!”. Everybody wins. I don’t get it; restaurant after restaurant slaps themselves on the back for using recyclable materials, but do any of them provide a spot for the customer to put it? Exceedingly few, so the vast majority of it ends up in the dump. What’s the point in recyclable products if they don’t get recycled?