I recently saw an sculpture of a massive tornado made out of the lids from take away coffe cups.

It was in a foyer of a very flash building right next to the very nice coffee shop I used to visit a couple of times a day (and still would visit but I have moved offices).

It really resonated with me. It occured to me that the amount of lids used in the sculpture could easily have amounted to the number pumped out of that coffee shop every day. Scale that up to a month or a year, and to all the other coffee shops and thats pretty horrifying!

It could also amount to the number I personally used over, what, a year? No Idea, but that sounded like something I could do something about.

Since I’m working on being more intentional in my life, focusing on choosing what I want rather than just doing what I have always done, this has prompted me to intentionally cut the amount of plastic I use.

First step…might be a good idea to not use take away coffee cups anymore (groundbreaking hey!!!).

So I got a keep cup, which, sadly, I didn’t love… it was pretty but it tasted funny. So I went straight back to takeaways, strangled the planet with plastic and everyone died.

Wait, no I didnt!. Rather than go back to takeaways, I brought a glass double walled latte cup I had at home to work and I have been using that for coffee ever since. I dont need plastic lid at all.

It wasnt that hard, it just required taking a minute (probably not even that long) to think about a better solution.

Then I thought if I can take a keep cup to the coffee shop to get coffee, maybe I could take a keep bowl to get the rest of my breakfast in.

I dont think anyone had asked the shop if they could use a keep bowl before so the request was met with some quizzical looks. But hey, I figured they buy their yoghurt in massive tubs they then transfer to little takeaway containers. It wouldn’t be any harder to put it in my bowl, and they were happy to oblige.

Then of course, what logically follows is…. lunch.

So Im feeling pretty happy with myself about this. Its a little thing but it will make a difference.

What should I do next?

What have you guys done to reduce plastic?

If you haven’t done anything yet would you be willing to bring a cup and/or bowl from home and see how your local responds? Come on the journey with me. Let me know how that goes.