The Ripple Effect

Even as the recycling habit takes hold across the nation, the footprints of a consuming society remain bold. And according to Northwest Environment Watch, an environmental group in Seattle, the impact may be even deeper than one might think.

Fuel. Ketchup. Wires. Newspapers. Grain. Paint.

The environmental group, calculating the ripple effect of each product, estimates that the living habits of the typical American ultimately consume 121 pounds of various resources each day.

Here, for instance, is a look at the average person’s coffee habit, seen through this environmental prism:

* One cup of Columbian coffee requires 100 beans, one-sixtieth the annual output of a coffee tree in Colombia.

* One year’s coffee supply consumes the beans of 12 trees. To produce this supply requires 11 pounds of fertilizers and a few ounces of pesticides, and 43 pounds of pulp stripped from the beans will be thrown into Colombian rivers.

* Once in this country, the beans are roasted in an oven fueled by natural gas, and then packed in four-layer bags made of polyethylene, nylon, aluminum foil and polyester. An 18-wheel tractor-trailer powered by a diesel engine carries them to distribution points.

* The beans are typically sold in wax-lined paper bags, which are brought home from stores in larger brown paper sacks. In the kitchen, they are measured in a plastic scoop, spooned into a grinder made of aluminum, copper and plastic and powered by electricity.

* The coffee is made with tap water, trickles into a glass carafe and is poured into a ceramic mug. Washing the mug consumes additional water, probably more than was used in making the coffee.