Kettles use a lot of electricity, particularly as many of us boil more water than we need to make our cup. We also often let our beverage go cold and then make some more, after all no one likes cold tea or coffee. So we waste yet more electricity, instead we should stuff it in the microwave to reheat it so use less.
All the Yes points:
All the No points:
- Tea is something to be enjoyed
- Be less wasteful – don’t drink tea
- Cold tea tastes nice and a lot of people like cold coffee too.
Could save £100 million a year!
Yes because…
Wrap, a government waste watchdog, has released statistics stating that Britain loses 100 million a year by throwing away hot drinks that have gone cold. Given that we are in a credit crunch, this £100 million a year could be used by the public to help their economic situation without relying on government help. This is such an easy change to make in order to stave off poverty. No one loses out in this scenario. The public get a cup of tea, they save a good few pounds a year and the government will have to help less people out of relative poverty.
No because…
The population of Britain is currently 67 million [[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_population_of_the_United_Kingdom]]. this means that each person, would save £1.49 a year by reheating hot drinks. This is not going to help any individual stave off the effects of the recession and it certainly will not help our government who currently are in £101.3 billion debt [[http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?ID=277]].
Reheating is 5 times better for the environment
Yes because…
Reheating a hot drink gone cold is 5 times better for the environment than making a new cup the Government waste watchdog Wrap has revealed in its latest survey. Whilst some may see the kettle and the microwave as using the same amount of electricity this is in fact not the case.
It would only take a short 10 seconds blast of a conventional microwave to reheat a medium sized cup of tea. The kettle would take longer to boil – especially as people do not like boiling the same water in the kettle twice. Also, a microwave will only heat the cup of tea you put in there, with a kettle, people often put more water in than they will use, so power is being wasted on pointlessly boiling water.
We also need to take into consideration, the milk, sugar and tea bag production of carbon emissions. By not remaking the cup of tea, we save on all of this carbon.
No because…
Tea is something to be enjoyed
No because…
Britain loves its tea. It is culturally known for us to love a good cup of tea. How can we love a cup of tea that has been reheated? It would not taste the same and it would not be as enjoyable. Reheating in the microwave causes a film to develop due to the milk. This would make having a cup of tea more dreadful than enjoyable. The advice issued by the watchdog of waste poses a threat to how people view their tea break rather than encouraging people to be less wasteful.
Yes because…
Be less wasteful – don’t drink tea
No because…
Let the point be heard that if someone can easily and regularly forget about their cup of tea which is going cold, then they surely cannot anticipate and long for tea that much. Therefore, why do they not drink a cold drink to begin with? If people are prone to forgetting about hot drinks it seems that the most environmentally friendly thing for them to do, is not to spend more money and carbon emissions on reheating the drink, but by steering clear of hot drinks altogether? Wraps advice goes considerably shorter than this, which is why perhaps they have only reduced Britain’s wastage cost per household by 30p a week. There would be bigger savings if people gave up tea altogether.
Yes because…
This really depends what the alternative is. Tea may have to be boiled in a kettle so contributing CO2 emissions and occasionally reheated. However if the alternative is any kind of canned, or even bottled drink then their emissions are likely to be as bad. Such drinks are processed, packaged (often in environmentally wasteful plastic rather than cardboard for tea) and are both bulkier and heavier for transporting than the equivilant amount of tea. From a liter bottle of coke you will only get about five cups whereas one box of tea will normally give 50-100 teabags and potentially double that number of cups! Even with the occasional reheating Tea is environmentally friendly.
Cold tea tastes nice and a lot of people like cold coffee too.
No because…
Cold tea is actually quite a pleasant taste. Warming it up again doesn’t do that much for the flavour. If you don’t like your tea so much that you have to make it warm to disguise the taste, why drink it?
If you make the tea first thing before you go to sleep and leave the tea bag in your tea overnight, the next day it really brings out the taste and it will keep you awake all day.
Hot foods are bad for you.Someone burnt her esophagus/oesophagus eating something hot. [[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071119131031AAsrcFn]]
[[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090330084343AAA4qGv]]
Sadly, I often leave my tea unattended for hours at a time and it gets cold. Now, I like my tea cold, but only at certain times. Overwhelmingly, I use the microwave to reheat it gently Instead of wasting electricity to heat up thekeattle and wasting even more energy that it took to get the TV to my cup from wherever it was picked
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