Plastic Cups and glass Mugs
 

Studies have found that dropping a glass mug onto a hard surface can result in breakage. Flaubertalioni argues that the chance of breakage is considerably less when the glass mug is dropped from no higher than 5 feet onto a spongier surface such as carpet or astroturf.

In fact, it has been postulated that even a wood floor can minimize the breakage rate as compared to breakage on concrete. "A glass dropped on a concrete floor is more likely to break than if it was dropped on a wood floor because the concrete has no bend to it. A wood floor might help absorb some of the impact by bending slightly when the glass hit it."

http://www.answers.com/Q/A_glass_dro...it_is_wood_why

While glass mugs are more pleasant to hold than plastic cups, and may even hinder the melting of ice cubes, many experts recommend plastic cups to those who find breakage to be a contributing factor to more taxing responsibilities like clean-up and disposal.

Answers.com is horrible. Almost as bad as eHow.

I know. That's what happens with random threads citing random sources picked randomly out of randomland. ;)

Drat. I was expecting philosophical waxing and personal glass and plastic-related anecdotes.

In college, I found a plastic crystal beer mug somebody left at a dorm party. It was nice. I washed it and was bragging to my friends about my find. It said "unbreakable" right on it. I tossed it against the concrete block wall and it clattered to the tile floor, completely unharmed. I actually said that it was unbreakable.

My friend said "I can break it."

I told him to go ahead and try, confident that it wouldn't break. He stood in my doorway with the mug, and wound up like a pitcher in a baseball game, and threw it with all his might against the concrete block wall. And it broke.

I was both impressed and a little bummed.

I was out once with the long term partner of a friend who really kicked off at a barmaid who gave him a plastic glass because we were going to drink outside.
"Do I look like I'm about to glass someone?" he said, all red faced and aggressive.

(actually I don't remember exactly what he said, only that I both wanted to laugh at the irony and also sink into the floor in embarrassment as she wasn't the one who had made the rule)

I had a beautiful coffee mug that an older lady cow orker had given me as a going-away present one summer before I left for college. I had it for years. I took it into work as my work coffee mug and it wasn't until a library lady told me that I found out it was even more special, being Bybee pottery. http://www.bybeepottery.com/

One day during renovation I went into my office and found my mug shattered and a very apologetic note from some poor guy who accidentally knocked it off my shelf while working in there. I let it go. He felt awful and what would be the point in replacing it?

It had this boy fishing motif:

All those Bybee collectors should thank you. Theirs are more valuable now that yours is broken.

Where's the outrage? Won't you think of the kilndren?

I had been told by a teacher as a child that it was impossible to break an egg by squeezing with one fist. Ideal curve and distribution of the force and all that. In college I repeated this at some point, and my friend called bullshit.

"Try it then," I said.
"No, because then my hand will be all messy. I don't need convincing, YOU try it."

It's true, I never had, because who gives an egg to a kid to just smash?

So I tried it, and not only did it break, but the shell bits cut my hand. Maybe the teacher meant that it was unlikely for a kid's hand to be able to break the egg, since it did take a fair amount of force. Or maybe she just loved the idea of 25 kids going home and getting yolk all over their hands.

I like drinking out of a pewter tankard or canteen cup. So nice and cool in the summer and the heat in winter warms your hands. I want to start making some drinking horns, but I can't quite get started.

Minerally white wines (a.k.a. flints) like those from Sancerre are wonderful cool out of a stainless steel canteen cup.

Stainless steel is generally preferable to pewter, because although modern pewter formulations contain tin and antimony, the antimony component can be labelled and dealt with.

I want a mug by Bybee now.

This is cute:

This isn't? :(

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