Event Supplies 2.5% (13 Month) SALE!

December 1st, 2008

Roll up, Roll up! Event Supplies have today discounted all our range by a MASSIVE 2.5%!

Yes that’s right, we too are passing on the 2.5% cut in VAT as from today!

Hurry, the offer must end by 2010!

Polycarbonate Plastic Shotglasses

November 28th, 2008

Event Supplies are delighted to announce that we have now expanded our range of Reusable Plastic Shotglasses to include two new designs.

Our new Polycarbonate Remedy Shot Glasses are CE Marked and available in units of 24 per case. These Gibraltar style glass complete this range of glasses and are available from £13.90 for 24.

The new Straight Shot Polycarbonate Shot Glasses are also CE Marked, available in units of 24, priced at £15 for 24 and both new shotglasses are machine washable up to 500 cycles without showing signs of degradation.

safety-glass-straight-shotglasssafety-glass-remedy-shot-glass

Hi Tech Paper Cups, Low Tech Speakers.

November 19th, 2008

The designer Dmitry Zagga has created these iPod CupSpeakers from nothing more than a few large disposable paper cups, a few toothpicks, the iPod earbuds and plenty of spare time.

He claims the volume increase is ‘significant’ and his fancy photography makes this DIY project created in a shed look like something straight out of a Steve Jobs Powerpoint.

The sound is magnified due to the shape of the cup, not any fancy-schmancy ‘electronics.’ It may not compete with, you know, real speakers, but Dmitry’s got a good sense of humor and it looks like a fun project for the incredibly bored.

On next weeks blog we construct a ‘telephone’ using the same two cups and length of string.

cup_speakers
cup_speakers2

Do I really have to carry this cup all day?

November 17th, 2008

Much is being made at the moment of the City of Toronto banning paper cups with plastic lids in favour of expanded polystyrene(foam - normally considered the devils material) which the city has the ability to recycle (it cannot recycle plastic lids as most consumers do not separate the lids from the paper cups prior to disposing of them - and they’re not going to do it for you!)

To the amazement of some the city has also said it will ban biodegradable plastic shopping bags in favour of conventional plastic bags as the city cannot recycle the biodegradable bags!)

Many bloggers and social commentators are suggesting coffee drinkers should make use of (carry with them) porcelain or ceramic cups should the need for a coffee arise. The councilors of Toronto are suggesting discounts should be given to customers who bring their own mugs.

Some companies are already doing this and a new market for ceramic ‘paper cups’ without handles has sprung from the idea that people will carry these reusable takeaway style cups at all times.
Before a Starbucks occupied every second corner in New York City, a blue paper cup with a thin sip thru lid was the symbol for coffee-to-go.

The iconic We are happy to serve you paper coffee cup was introduced in 1963, and more than 180 million are used in New York City every year. The environmentally minded design group, exceptionlab, have worked with both the Sweetheart Cup Company, Inc and Aid to Artisans to convert the design from disposable to permanent, from paper to ceramic.

This ceramic version of the paper cup is not the first spin off product to have been given the ‘we are happy to serve you’ treatment, nor is it the first to be created in ceramic. The plain white ‘I am not a Paper Cup‘ ceramic cup made by Decor Craft is available from a slew of websites here and in the US.

We are happy to serve you ceramic cupsi-am-not-a-paper-cupHappy to serve you purse
Happy to be a watchcoffee_coastershappy not to be a plastic bag

 I expect Anya Hindmarch is probably at home silently kicking herself that she didn’t trademark the ‘I am not a (insert product here)’ phrase following the success of her non disposable carrier bags.

With that in mind we have started work on the ‘I am not a tea bag’, ceramic refillable tea bag (with free reinforced spoon) for use with these non-disposable products. Anybody wishing to invest in this genius project or has any other (comedic) ideas for ceramic versions of disposable products please call us on 0844 499 5456 and we can come up with our masterplan! Muah ha ha ha ha!!

Its the most wonderful time of the year….(almost)

November 6th, 2008

 

Tis the season to be selling Christmas Banquet Rolls, Tra la la la laa, la la la la…

 

We have recently added two new 25m Christmas Paper Banquet Rolls to our range.

The ‘Santa’ Design Christmas Banquet Roll and the Holly Star design Christmas Banquet Roll are available for £11.00 each.

 

Also available are the Holly Swirl design Napkins, Tablecovers and Slipcovers and the Merry Christmas design products.

Merry Christmas RangeHolly Swirl Range

Santa Design Christmas Banquet RollHolly Star Christmas Banquet Roll

 

 

 

*Best Before December 25th*

 

New Courier Service

November 5th, 2008

We are delighted to announce that we have been able to reduce our shipping costs!

From today we will be using APC couriers who are able to offer the same level of service our customers enjoyed at reduced rates.

Standard parcels delivered the next working day now start from as little as £7.00 per consignment.

APC will attempt to deliver packages three times, leaving a calling card on each occasion. If nobody is available to receive the goods on the third attempt they will be left in a secure location (with a neighbour/in garage/porch as available)

Our new delivery rates can be viewed here

apc

The one where Owls are made from Paper Cups.

November 4th, 2008

Oh… My… Gawd!

It seems I was right. Catering disposable products seem to be the medium of choice for aspiring artistes at present.

One time Friends star Maggie Wheeler (Janice) can currently be found on the Magpie Time website showing kids how to create cardboard owls from disposable paper cups, plastic coffee lids, drink holders and alot of glue.

Janice Maggie and a bunch of other LA based artists, animators, writers and actors formed the Magpie Time group in the early 90’s.

After reading an entertaining story about an owl, the groups founder Pat Roberts, a Los Angeles-based fine artist, was asked by his children how to make one. This was the beginning of MAGPIE TIME. Rather than go out and buy supplies or a ready-made kit, Pat thought there had to be a simpler, more environmentally responsible, and less “packaged” way to spend time on an art project with his kids. So that morning’s coffee cups, lids, sleeves and tray holder became the first owl.

The concept of the group is to teach arts and crafts to children in an accessible and entertaining manner, using materials found in the house and everyday life: plastic bottles, paper coffee cups, lids, paper towel/toilet paper rolls, cereal boxes etc.

 

Apologies for the rapping…..

The Official Magpie Time sizzle reel from Magpie Time on Vimeo.

A short time ago in a Starbucks not far away……

October 29th, 2008

Wired magazine photographer Dan Winters made this impressive TIE Fighter from 1 tall lid, 10 coffee boxes, 12 small paper cups, 37 large paper cups, 63 paper drink carriers and 216 wooden stirrers!

starbucks-disposables-tie-fighter

starbucks-disposables-tie-fighter

It seems given my recent blog ‘artistic use for catering disposables’ that more and more people are choosing catering disposable products a medium to create art. Maybe we should be advertising in art supplies shops?

Wired magazine has started a competition and created a how-to Wiki page where you can submit your entries should you feel compelled to enter

May the forks be with you (*Ahem*)

Where are your Foam cups?

October 24th, 2008

We have been asked why we don’t sell the Foam (EPS) cups?

We don’t sell foam cups (EPS - expanded polystyrene or extruded polystyrene foam) for a couple of reasons. These EPS cups are very bulky, on a standard pallet we can fit a few thousand foam cups compared with 72,000 Paper Cups!

The product does not stack/nestle inside each other very well and the box they are contained in is mostly full of fresh air!
It costs the same amount of money and uses up the same amount of resources to move a box containing fresh air as it does one containing paper cups.

Ever increasing transport costs will soon spell the end of these products, not least when you consider the health and environmental impact these products have.

Foam cups do not biodegrade and are difficult to recycle. Left outside recycling channels they degrade into smaller and smaller pieces over time, like rocks turning into sand, and find their way into the food chain, where they begin to poison animals that eat it in error. There exists no bacterium currently capable of metabolising Styrofoam.

The migration of styrene from a polystyrene cup into the beverage it contains has been observed to be as high as 0.025% for a single use. That may seem like a rather low number, until you work it this way: If you drink beverages from polystyrene cups four times a day for three years, you may have consumed about one foam cup’s worth of styrene along with your beverage.

Mmm…. chem-i-callyyyy…

eps-foam-cup

eps-foam-cup

Artistic use for Catering Disposables

October 16th, 2008

Tara Donovan at the Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Ave, Boston  has created a number of works of art from some of our more mundane catering disposable products, namely White Paper Plates, Plastic Non Vending Cups, Drinking Straws and Toothpicks to name a few.

As you can see below the works resemble rocks, seas, clouds, mountain ranges and other natural formations. The Brooklyn sculptor was named a MacArthur Fellow last month, receiving a £500,000 ‘Genius Grant’ in the process.

Plastic Cupstoothpicks
Plastic CupsPaper Plates
Plastic CupsDrinking Straws
Drinking StrawsPlastic Cups
Plastic CupsPaper Plates
Donovan says of her work, “it is not like I’m trying to simulate nature. It’s more of a mimicking of the way of nature, the way things actually grow. My work might appear ‘organic’ or ‘alive’ specifically because my process mimics, in the most elementary sense, basic systems of growth found in nature.”