"1 paper cup = 1,006 ceramic cup uses"

This scientific calculation just in: ceramic cups require more resources to manufacture and must be used 1,006 times before reaching the equivalent level of environmental friendliness as a paper cup. 

And I don't know about you, but using a ceramic mug for two years just seems impossible. [Larry David face emoticon here.]

One of the forces we SUDs-kickers are often up against is the willingness of the industries that manufacture single-use-disposable products to disseminate false or misleading information.  In this case, it's Mars Drinks. Mars's main products include Flavia and Klix, both of which are coffee systems that rely on single-use pouches (with a plastic cap!) to brew their coffee.

They claim single-use-disposable paper cups are more environmentally friendly on account of the fact that ceramic cups require both more energy to make and more water to clean. Paper cups on the other hand, can be incinerated to create waste while plastic cups can be recycled into items like key rings, which makes them more, how you say, long lasting?

The problem, as any astute life-cycle-analyzer will point out is that first of all, the average ceramic mug lasts longer than 1006 uses and heads into the dishwasher with the rest of the kitchen eating implements, thereby it doesn't create any waste of its own. Second of all, paper and plastic cups are not recycled at the rates we need in order for them to reproduce the avalanche of recycled plastic key rings American consumers are so desparate to collect. 

In other words, using a paper (or worse, styrofoam!) cup at the water cooler for a quick sip doesn't make sense when you could use that mug 1,006 times and contribute zero waste to the landfill and fell approximately zero trees. Bonus: send approximately zero granules of styrofoam into the ocean.