Busted.

I totally just caught myself using the “it’s better for the environment” argument to hold on to a bunch of stuff. Specifically a multitude of coffee mugs. First I should confess that I love coffee mugs, I had a tendency to acquire them like a collection. So when I decided to move towards a minimalist lifestyle, I knew that I was going to have to get rid of a few. Not having actually counted, I believe the number was somewhere around…22. Bear in mind that I drink coffee at my home approximately once a week, if that.

Now, I have pared down the collection quite a bit. I keep 8 10 in my cupboard right now, and recognize that’s probably still more than I need. Plus, aside from the 10 in my cupboard, I have another 7 or 8 that I keep in the drawer where I keep my lunch bag. These rotate in and out of the office.

The justification, of course, being that if I bring a clean cup to the office and the dirty cup home to put in the dishwasher, I won’t use the paper cups and hence, I’m protecting the environment. But this afternoon I came up with a crazy idea. Now this is really revolutionary, so brace yourself…

What if I kept one mug at the office and washed it?

I know, crazy right? I told you it was a novel idea.

It is a rare situation that holding on to too much stuff actually helps the environment. And it’s something I’ll be working through. I started this post yesterday and can say that today, I came to the office with 6 mugs and added them to the office cupboard. My hope is that the next time someone here reaches for a mug, they will use one that I have donated to the stash instead of paper cup. What’s more environmentalist than that?

What are your justifications for holding onto excess stuff, or stuff that doesn’t suite you?