Plastic Cups & Perfectionism

Tackling change one step at a time.

Do you ever feel like perfectionism is both a blessing and a curse?

It’s one of those funny traits that manages to toe that fine line between aspirational and detrimental. Hilariously, I used to cite my own perfectionism whenever I was asked about flaws in job interviews. At the time, it was more of a cop-out answer designed to shine a light on my advertised attention to detail. Now, I wholeheartedly see it for the flaw I always purported it to be, just less so in the workplace than in my personal life. 

I’m the queen of getting discouraged when something fails to meet my unrealistically high expectations. It’s a work in progress. 

Lately, “Something is better than nothing,” has become a sort of mantra for me, but this isn’t how I’ve always thought. If anything, I’m frequently working against an all-or-nothing instinct. One that I suspect a lot of us experience when getting caught up in the rush of excitement and motivation that comes with jumping into a new project idea or trying to make a life change. 

For example, some people act on this all-or-nothingness when starting a new hobby, buying up every bit of potentially necessary supplies before ever establishing if it’s an investment-worthy fit. 

Whenever I need a reminder about the importance of baby steps over drastic change, I return to one of the most accidentally successful examples of habit change in my life – cutting out plastic. 

Growing up, I never considered myself much of a nature girly. 

Litterbug discourse was pervasive enough that I wasn’t deliberately throwing garbage on the ground, but I also wasn’t particularly concerned about recycling or trash as a major issue. If anything, the emphasis on littering seemed a touch dramatic to childhood me, considering that I had only ever lived in the sparsely populated hills of the Pennsylvania Wilds, where trees outnumber people by a long shot. 

In college, I started to hear rumblings about a massive disruption to global waste management systems, particularly changes to Chinese policy that banned the import of most foreign trash starting in 2017. Before that, the United States outsourced a truly staggering amount of waste to China for cheaper sorting and recycling. These changes have since left the U.S. and other wealthy nations scrambling for a new place to stash their stuff since domestic processing capabilities are woefully insufficient for how much waste we currently produce. 

The reasons for this policy change are varied but result from many of the same recycling challenges faced domestically like more mixed-material goods and batches increasingly contaminated with stuff that makes it difficult (i.e. expensive) to process. 

All of a sudden, I was reading the signs at campus garbage cans a little more carefully to ensure I wasn’t wishcycling – a delightful term for when you don’t really know if something is recyclable but you throw it in the bin anyway with a hope and a prayer. 

I was quickly confronted with the fact that I had been wishcycling to-go coffee cups multiple times a day for several years. I was a tired college student discovering my love of tea and coffee. What I thought was a paper cup destined to be recycled was actually a plastic-lined cup practically incapable of ever being recycled even in the best of circumstances. And now I knew it might also be preventing other trash from getting recycled, too?! 

Gotta love it when you realize you’re part of the problem. 

Source: Kent State University

So I started experimenting with how to reduce my coffee cup waste. First, I tried always carrying around my thermos, but half the time found it wouldn’t fit under the coffee and hot water dispensers around campus. Plus, it was heavy in my already overstuffed bag. 

So I turned to Google and stumbled upon a small business selling a collapsible to-go cup made from silicone that blew my mind. 

A few days later I was rocking my Stojo cup morning, noon, and night for all my caffeinated beverage needs. It was easy to pack and even easier to use since the petite dimensions were similar to that of its disposable counterpart. 

Plus, every barista just thought it was the coolest. 

It might sound silly, but mindfully tackling this problem until I found a seamless solution made the daily act of grabbing a coffee feel a little extra sweet because, well, doing good feels good. So much so, that I started looking for more opportunities to swap reusables into my daily routine, falling deep into the rabbit hole of plastic-free and low-waste living. 

Over the last six years, I’ve made a lot of gradual lifestyle changes that I’m pretty proud of, but it got me thinking; what made this change stick when so many other new undertakings don’t?

Unlike all the times I’ve tried to become a zen yogi, a gym rat, or a get-up-and-go morning person, my desire to change wasn’t loaded with precursor fantasies of the person I’d become once I started. I was just seeking a solution for a problem that I wanted to solve, not overhauling my routine all at once.  

I wasn’t trying to become a climate warrior. I was trying to throw away fewer cups. 

Source: @stojo

It’s a subtle difference, but one that has proven to be essential when it comes to navigating my inevitable failures. Unlike exercise or sleeping in, using plastic or not knowing how to recycle doesn’t have the same societal moralistic baggage attached to it. It’s not perceived as a marker of a good life or a bad life, it’s just a given. 

So when I forgot my cup at home or discovered something new I had been wishcycling, I didn’t get so caught up in the emotional pitfalls of failing to be the person I thought I “should” be. I didn’t berate myself and give up the same way I was inclined to if I overslept or didn’t make it to the gym when I told myself I would. 

And that’s exactly why it stuck. 

Slowly but surely, I’m starting to understand that this same level of leniency isn’t just permissible, but wholly necessary for many of us to build habit changes that can grow and evolve with us over the long term. By allowing ourselves the chance to make small gains, we create momentum to tackle bigger ones. 

I still find this tough to do when it comes to the higher-profile “shoulds” dictated by societal norms; I’m unlearning a lot of distorted notions about what it means to do it well or not do it at all. 

But when I need proof that big change follows in the wake of small adjustments, I look to the rags that sit where paper towels once did, the medicine cabinet lined with refillable hair care, and remember that it all started with a little curiosity and a single reusable cup.