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When we bless our food and the hands that prepared it, we usually have in mind the work of whoever was in the kitchen, chopping, slicing, and baking. But is it possible to be truly mindful of everyone involved when it comes to convenience food?

Leah Reddy went in search of some real-world theology, and found no better symbol of our spiritual interconnectedness than the humble cup holding her morning coffee.

Part 1: The Cup That Started it All 

I buy coffee one morning from Adam, a vendor on Broadway outside of Trinity’s north churchyard.

He’s originally from Egypt, and planning a long visit back, so it’s lucky I decided to talk to him that morning. It takes me a while to explain why I need the name of his cup distributor. “You want cups? How many?” he asks. I explain again, and he gives me a business card that says only “Cups! Lowest Prices!” with a phone number.

The phone number leads me to Mark at Distributors Vending, a small business located in Ardsley, New York. Mark leaves the warehouse at 3am to deliver cups. By 5am, when he arrives in Lower Manhattan, vendors are setting up on the sidewalks. Most of Mark’s cups have advertisements printed on them, subsidizing their cost. “Sometimes when I’m driving to Manhattan, I see someone drinking out of one of our cups, and I think, wow, that came from my warehouse.”

Part 2: We're More Connected Than We Realize

Mark buys cups from Encompass Media Group, a New York firm which specializes in outdoor advertising. I talk with creative director Benjy Kile. He’s laid back, and he knows the coffee cup industry. So why advertise on cups? 

“Cups are in your hands longer than you think, especially in New York. Getting coffee is a constant, repetitive routine.” 

My interview with Benjy turns up surprising information: different geographic areas favor different cup styles, and the economics of an area determine what size cups vendors want. Encompass Media oversees the production of their cups, but they don’t actually manufacture cups. So I buy another coffee and call Dopaco, Inc., the manufacturing company listed on the bottom of the cup.

I misdial and call the wrong number. I reach a law office in Pennsylvania and apologize, but the man on the line says, “Your number came up as Trinity Church. The church at Broadway and Wall Street? I used to walk through the churchyard when I worked down there.” Coffee cup or not, we’re all more connected than we realize.

Part 3: 6 Million Cups a Day

I dial the correct number, and after ten minutes in automated phone system purgatory, I reach Carol, a peppy sales coordinator at Dopaco’s Downingtown, PA, manufacturing center. She transfers me to Frank, whose voicemail reminds me to have a beautiful day. When Frank returns my call I learn that Dopaco produces, on average, 6 million cups per day. The cups begin as cupstock, a polyethylene coated paperboard that is delivered in 60-inch diameter rolls. They’re unrolled on a printing press, printed, die-cut, stacked on a pallet and transferred to the forming area, where employees guide the nascent cups through ten “forming stations,” which wrap cups, glue and seal cup bottoms, and crimp cup lips, resulting in a finished paper cup.

Downingtown is a town of 8,000 in eastern Pennsylvania. At one time, there were 5 paper mills in there; Dopaco, which employs 250 people, is the only mill left. Most Dopaco employees are blue collar workers, but some have degrees and have struggled to find work in their field.

Part 4: From Public Health to Convenience 

Frank tells me Dopaco buys cupstock from Georgia Pacific, a paper industry giant. I call customer service and make my way through a lot of people who don’t have the information I need. I do learn that paper cups started as a way to control the spread of disease, particularly on trains. The paper cup industry took off during the flu epidemics of the early twentieth century.

I finally reach Kelly Ferguson in their corporate communications department. He strikes me as a Ken (of Barbie and Ken) type, an all-American boy rolling into middle age. He tells me that paper cups start as trees in the southeastern United States. Both hard and soft-wood trees are grown, then felled and chipped into small pieces before being “pulped,” broken down into small pieces and mixed with water. The pulp is run through a paper machine the size of football field which presses the water from the pulp, dries the new paper and then rolls it up. From there, the new-born paper is taken to a converting plant, where wax or, as in the case of my coffee cup, polyethylene, is painted on the paper. The coating not only helps the cups hold liquid, it helps control the cup temperature when a hot or cold liquid is added.

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