What’s your BETT’A idea?

From programmers’ wisdom: “There is a reason why we call it beta…’cause it’s a “bett’a” version!”

Imagine this scenario (that it’s actually real life many times for many of us…):

It’s early in the morning …but it’s already so late for your work! You must reach fast at the office and get there in time!  You hurry up to take a speedy refreshing shower, put fast some clothes on and for the ladies some make up, arrange the hair and compose a decent face before you go out of the door and then you run fast to catch the metro/bus or to get a free road until the office….and when you are finally on the way, you realize that in all this hurry, you didn’t have time for a coffee! or for breakfast…and while you are anxiously trapped in your daily transport you start thinking of solutions to fuel your energy…..and that’s how every day millions of coffee cups to go are sold. You grab one fast, you’re on your way and drink it as fast as possible so that you get to the office all wired up and  ready for work and you dump the empty cup in the first trash bin that you find….and you do that every day, at least 5 days per week…20 times per month…240 times per year … you do the math for each year of your life …and consider all the other coffee users…that’s a big amount of coffee cups thrown away daily, right?

What happens with all those coffee cups to go that are thrown away? What are they made of? Are those made from recycling materials?

Have a look at this video, it will explain a little more the stats of this daily “coffee cup to go” scenario…

…unfortunately the current coffee cups to go are not recyclable! ….they are made from paper and they are extremely convenient for our use, but since they cannot be recycled, they are totally inconvenient for the environment around us…that’s a lot of waste to dump on this planet! 58 billion Cups for Coffee-to-go are used every year…these cups are produced from 20 million trees and 12 billion gallons of water are used! And none of these paper coffee cups are recyclable!  …so there is room for bright ideas, for finding a better cup …for a bett’a version of it…

and that’s why the Beta Cup people came up with this initiative and worked with Starbucks to support this community and bring up solutions. They gathered an important amount of solutions for this issue, have a look on their website  http://www.thebetacup.com/.

And the winner?  The reusable cup made from 100% naturally compostable disposable from rice husks, the waist of global rice production, presented at this link.

This solution was implemented in the global coffee chain Starbucks and also the inventors were invited to submit their idea to Earth Awards 2010.

WOW! The Earth Awards video sure do offer the perspective for what’s there left to do …. There is space for improvement in many areas around us.

We just need to pay attention, record good ideas (get inspired from these excellent videos showing how good ideas are coming from colliding with other hunches, ideas, that previously were recorded mentally with the help of our paying attention attitude – details in this post) and put those little ideas to work, make things a little bit better around us.

Because sometimes, the brightest ideas come from the simplest approaches and from a simple question: “Is there a better idea for this?”  That’s how many social businesses and social entrepreneurship starts.  …Like bringing light into Philippines’ houses with a simple and cheap 1$ plastic bottle…A third world solution for the third world problems.

Do YOU have a simple “BETA” idea for something that you notice around? 

PS:  Do your work and make the Earth better, but remember that in the end,  “Life is like a cup of coffee” (have a look at this link for details), so enjoy also your coffee on your way to change the world!