If you're not a morning person and need a caffeine fix to get your day started, you might be in for a very rude awakening. It's likely that Toronto coffee drinkers will be forced to dish out more cash when they go to buy a cup of java and they won't be getting more for their money.

Hundreds of millions of paper cups are tossed into trash bins across Ontario every year, and they all wind up in landfills. That's why the city's Works Committee wants to put a stop to the endless waste and is proposing a 25 to 30 cent tax on every cup of coffee that comes in either a cardboard, styrofoam or wax-lined cup.

Toronto Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker warns if companies don't find solutions to help reduce garbage that's sent to local dumping sites, he'll move forward with imposing the extra charge. "We want to stop producing this massive amount of pollution. If you're making cups that end up in our parks, streams and landfills in the United States of America, then we will have you pay a levy."

Not surprisingly, the idea of a java jolt in your wallet isn't coffee retailers' cup of tea. They fear any price hike will drive customers away. And that's why some are already taking action. Tim Hortons is trying cups lined with corn starch. Some municipalities are also stepping up to help the cause. Windsor, for example, accepts Tim Hortons cups in its blue boxes and Hamilton takes the containers to its organic composting plant. But Toronto doesn't have the technology to process the wax-lining in the cups.

Coffee drinkers aren't happy about the possibility of paying more for something that's so precious to so many. "Why should the consumer have to pay for that?" wonders coffee drinker Richard Cash. But other customers think that imposing a tax will get people to actually do something to make all drinking cups environmentally-friendly. And tht would be the cream of this crop - even if it would make your mornings more expensive.