envirofriendly pubs

It’s Guinness time on the deck at O’Hanlon’s this balmy last afternoon of July (or August eve if you prefer) . Hah! Never mind that it’s 30 degrees celsius and there’s not a breath of a breeze to cool our weary brows. Even the mosquitoes have gone to hide in the park! But there’s the crew, faithful sots that we are, shielding our lovely dark brews from the heartless prairie glare. Trying desperately to get just the right angle on the table umbrella, so that our pints stay colder longer and don’t lose their heads (while we lose ours). Ah well, just “drink ‘em quicker” seems to be the solution of the day. And so we will.

Tables burgeoning with glasses, the crew goes through a few shift changes, it’s all extended family here. And as evening creeps across our happy place, and the sipping of the pints reaches that critical balance where the last sip is still just cool enough to be tasty, the philosophers in the crowd start searching for the topic of the day…

Have you ever noticed how friendly great pubs are? I mean really. They go out of their way to make you feel more welcome than you do at home. You get a smile or a nod, maybe even a hug when you stroll in the door. The bartender knows your name and your favorite brew. The floors are wood, so spills are cleaned up easily with a mop (if there's time and the crush isn't to bad), you still have traction (though occasionally a little too much) and accidents aren’t quite so embarrassing. The tables are nice and heavy, so that you don’t knock ‘em over as you struggle through the sea of libertines to go for a smoke. The sturdy chairs embrace you so that when you start to wobble they maintain your stability and your butt doesn’t fall asleep. The bartenders might even take a musical request or two if you ask real nice.

To my mind and tastebuds the best pubs draw their potables from kegs on tap and serve them in pint glasses (schooner mugs being too large to drink quickly enough before they get warm if you want to last more than an hour or two). Both kegs and glasses are reused, nothing for the landfill here. So pubs are environmentally friendly too! You might get the occasional coaster that has been ripped to bits or used for numbers and email addresses and of course the inevitable napkins once the munchies appear, but there just isn’t a lot of wastage in the pub. Even the bathrooms use Exelorator hand dryers that sound like a 747 coming in for a landing (talk about overkill, they'll even dry your jeans if you were in the path of spillage).

Just think of all the garbage a “not on tap” bar produces never mind that the bottles may be outdated or just freshly put in the cooler so they're still skunky warm. Bottles, cans, beer caps and flip lids, plastic holders and cardboard boxes. Granted the bottles and cans are recyclable, but then you have to dump any leftovers, sort them and load them (inevitably a bottom will drop out of a case and then you have to pick up the crushed glass as well), and tote them to the recyclers, then wait in Murphy’s “the other line is always faster” queue, and put up with the fruit flies flying up your nose and avoid or kill the other miscellaneous insects attracted to stale liquids. Sounds like a fun afternoon to me!

I think I’d rather just mosey on down to the pub, find myself a nice sturdy picnic table with umbrella protection, and have another Guinness.