Hi Everyone!

I work at Esurance, one of Live Earth's official partners. As we continue to work on greening our workplace, we're trying to greatly reduce or even entirely replace our use of paper cups here at our corporate headquarters. We're going to experiment here for a month or two, and then, hope to implement the results at all of our office locations.

To answer Rose Steven's question, we got our corn mugs here:
http://cornmug.com/index.php

They're very sturdy, so should last a while, and very nice looking as well.

Hope this helps!

I'm interested in this type of product for my church. Where could I get more information? Thanks.

I'm just a student,but I love to know more things i can do for our planet..I think many friends of mine don't know LIVEEARTH...AND tell me which the best way to let more and more people to know how to protect our planet...THANKS

It is my understanding that most items that end up in our landfills will pretty much stop decomposing no matter what they are made of. This is because of the lack of oxygen once the items are "packed" into the landfill...?
Also, the corn cups...and other bio-items...look pretty much the same as most items that we currently Recycle. When these bio-items get mixed with our usual recycling it can contaminate the Recycle stream. Therefor it is my understanding that the bio-items are meant for composting...or, for those of us that think it is OK to litter our roadways, streams and oceans.(not the message we want to send) Most of us do not compost...we are having a hard enough time getting people to Recycle!

A little info on the corn cups. Yes they are only composted when they make it into a industrial composting facility, but they don't release as many greenhouse gases as a normal plastic cup when they go into a landfill. Also you cannot currently recyle any plastic cups, to go packaging etc no matter if it's made from a 1 (PETE), 5 (PP), or 6 (PS). The only things that are actually recycled are coke bottles, water bottles, milk bottles and laundry detergent. The reason for this is becuase they are all made from the same material so it's easy to sort and know what plastics are what. Cups are made from different materials so sorting them is too time consuming and costly.
In response to the emissions/carbon footprint of harvesting the corn that is a fib made by the oil companies. The corn used to make PLA (the corn resin) only uses .25% of the yellow 5 corn in the entire US. The one problem with the corn resin packaging is that most of it is made in Asia. All of the resin is made in Blair NE so the resin is shipped from there to Asia the products are made and then shipped back meaning 22,000 miles of transportation to make the product. This does release a worse carbon footprint than simply making a plastic cup in the US. Buyer beware of what your buying.

This is a great idea. Bottles and other items are already made and used commercially out of corn. They hold up well as long as they are not exposed to extreme heat (as my husband found out).

Our school tries to reuse everything but once in a while we do use recyclable forks or cups. We avoid petroleum plastics but don't want to unknowingly end up supporting the GE (geneticly engineered) agriculture industry. Can corn recyclables be labeled "Non GMO."? (geneticly modified organism -- GMO and GE are the same as far as I know)

There's always the choice of going back to something "old" such as bringing your own mug/cup to work, wash, and re-use. That won't, of course, work for big events, but even using your own mug from home in office situations is going to help.

Eventhough this sounds like a great idea, the conditions to produce corn takes a lot of energy. I have learned this from my decathlon economic teacher, that ethane, the fantasic gas alternative is causing droughts in the MidWest.

I think it's great that boloco is trying to do something to limit energy resource consumption. But it's not clear that using corn-cups is more energy efficient or better for the environment overall than petroleum-based plastic cups. use of petroleum is deeply involved in the production of corn, albeit more indirectly. it's not 'organic' corn, it's just corn, and farmers use tractors powered by petroleum, excessive amounts of petroleum-based fertilizers and chemical pesticides to grow their corn. more energy (from petroleum) is needed to process this corn into cups and to transport the corn and then cups to their destination. it's a step, but in the right direction? i'm not sure.

The Denver Zoo has these cups. It's a great idea.

I would like to see "corntainers" and corn cups available in the supermarkets. I look forward to buying them!

Although more environmental options to paper, such as corn cups, may have their place occasionally, it seems that using real cups, plates, glasses and cloth napkins might be a better option.

Rose: About a month ago, Slate.com reviewed all the options for reusable water bottles. The article is here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2172541/

As you'll see, one of the products the author reviewed was a "Corntainer," and she provided a link so you could purchase it directly from Amazon.com. You can also look at Corntainer's website, which is here: http://www.corntainercorp.com/

As the author of the Slate piece warns you, however, you can *not* put your Corntainer in the dishwasher or otherwise expose it to extreme heat. It will melt!

Corn cups are made with oil. The corn is grown using oil. Oil fed corn is not a sustainable or renewable or natural resource.

It's a crock - more lies from Monsanto.