If you buy your daily cup of coffee in a disposable container, you are generating about 22.75 pounds of waste per year. (You're also wasting money; personal finance experts recommend making it at home to save $358 annually.) Across the country, 25 billion polystyrene (commonly known as Styrofoam) cups are thrown away every year, according to the EPA. That's troubling, because polystyrene takes hundreds of years to break down, and is made of nonrenewable petroleum.