We spoke about our worst habits and found out something wild

Bad habits come in all shapes and sizes.

We all want to cut our drinking down, eat fewer burgers and stop skipping the gym classes we’ve paid so much for.

It’s a topic people surprisingly love to talk about so we ran an experiment in the Yahoo office to lift the lid on people’s bad habits.

And when staff members got chatting the results got interesting.

“When I get stressed at work, I’ll go home, get naked on the couch and eat grated cheese out of the bag,” someone in commercial shared.

“At least it’s parmesan cheese. It’s not the Tasty or Bega or anything low-brow, I’ve got the more expensive taste in cheese so that makes me feel a little better about it. If you don’t do it in the nude, you get cheese everywhere.”

Alrighty then.

Other bad habits include leaving their parents on ‘read’ for days and not texting their mates back.

Guilty.

“My eating is my bad habit,” one said.

“I’m talkin’ 3am Indian Home Diner garlic naan and butter chicken.”

Guilty again.

What about words we’re annoyingly overusing?

‘Like’, ‘hashtag’ and ‘literally’ got a few honorary mentions.

And the usual pesky behaviours like hunching, nail biting, and cracking knuckles (and sternums!) still haunt us. But there were some champions who shared former bad habits they’ve managed to kick with a simple behaviour change.

“I would leave the tap on while brushing my teeth but, of course, I am more conscious of water usage these days,” someone in editorial revealed.

“I also used to put my recycling in a plastic bag but someone told me recently that’s a big mistake.

“Just when I thought I was doing something right, I was undoing the good with one mistake.”

This caught our attention. Perhaps the worst kind of bad habit is when you think you’re doing good but, in fact, you’re doing harm (ahem, we’re talking to you, ‘supposedly healthy frozen yogurt’).

A recent Ipsos study showed 20 per cent of Aussies put their recycling in plastic bags and straight into the yellow bin.

It’s a troubling stat because it means the plastic bag contaminates the whole bin and its contents will go straight to landfill, meaning valuable recyclable items are lost.

Why are plastic bags so bad for the recycling bin?

The initial sorting stage is managed by real people, by hand. They do not have time to sort through hundreds of thousands of recycling in plastics bags and some bags could be polluted with hazardous items like nappies or medical materials.

They also cause havoc with the mechanics at the sorting stage. Plastic bags can get stuck in the conveyor belts, jamming spinning wheels and forcing the whole process to slam to a halt. It’s a time consuming and dangerous feat to remove the wedged bags by hand.

So, what is our major take away from talking about our worst habits? Do not put your recycling in a plastic bag, people. It’s a rubbish move.