Pause. Rethink. Then act.

Back in 2013 I wrote about the small, invisible habits we hardly notice (see here.)

My example was simple: you walk into a coffee shop, they hand you a cup you think is paper (but is usually lined with plastic), you drink, you toss it. Job done. Except it’s not really done, is it? That cup still exists somewhere.

I said then that before we “reduce, reuse, recycle,” we first need to rethink. If we ask “do I actually need this?” before taking it, a lot of waste never even gets made. Recycling, if even an option, is not the answer, it is the last resort! “Rethink” wasn’t yet part of the four Rs – it was mainly just the classic three.

Pre-COVID, it looked like things were shifting. I’d see commuters with battered reusable mugs. Cafés serving coffee in real ceramic cups. Friends ditching cling film for beeswax wraps. Those small choices felt like they were catching on.

Then COVID hit. Almost overnight everything was wrapped, sealed, or disposable. Coffee shops stopped taking or serving reusables “for hygiene.” Even if you were sitting in, you’d still get a takeaway cup. I once asked for a proper mug and the barista looked at me like I’d asked to drink from the tap.

Now some outlets, like Pret, argue they “save space” by not offering ceramic cups. Save space? Where exactly? You save space in one place but create waste somewhere else.

And it’s not just coffee. I’ve noticed the same pattern everywhere. Single-use “to save time” or “because it’s easier.” Plastic bottles instead of refill stations. Pre-packaged snacks instead of shared fruit bowls. Props bought, used once, then binned. Even when we watch films or shows, the takeaway cup has become a kind of shorthand for “busy working person.” Offices and events have followed the trend too: plastic cutlery, endless stacks of one-use containers.

Manufacturers now say on their packaging “Not yet recyclable” as if to say “it is not our fault you cannot recycle this”.

The frustrating part is we’d already shown alternatives could work. We’d already been there. And now it feels like we’re back at square one.

It reminds me of when you tell someone “I’m vegetarian” or “I’m pescatarian” and they fire back with “so you don’t care about fish?” Or “do you know how much water it takes to grow an avocado?” The point isn’t perfection. The point is to make small, better choices where you can. Doing something is better than doing nothing.
If someone says “I go to the gym once a week”, you don’t reply by saying “You should go three times a week.”

That was the heart of my 2013 piece, and it still stands: the first step isn’t swapping one disposable for another “better” one. It’s asking if we need it at all.

Because those small choices do matter. They change habits. They grow into bigger ones. They train us to question things, to think critically. And isn’t that exactly what we want to pass on to our children?

Pause. Rethink. Then act.