With 2020 just underway, it’s time to decide what you want to let go of and what you choose to embrace for this upcoming year. Here are some powerful, green, climate-friendly, planet-loving resolutions:
1. Buy everything secondhand, whenever and wherever possible. There are some things you want to buy firsthand but everything else, from coats to blenders, can easily be purchased either in secondhand stores or on online swap sites. Host a clothing swap.
2. Most greenhouse gas emissions are from transportation. Walk, bike and carpool more, and drive less. Avoid flying for pleasure and cruise shipping, these top greenhouse gas emission scales. If you can manage it, invest in an electric car or use buses and trains for holiday travel.
3. Avoid buying and using pesticides. Grow your flowers and vegetables naturally. You, the animals, birds, bees and other pollinators will thank you.
4. Big Agra businesses are massive greenhouse gas emitters that pollute our air, land and waterways. Save all three by choosing to eat plant-based foods one or more days a week.
5. Up to 20 per cent of your home’s energy bill can be the result of dryer use. Hang your clothes outside on a line to dry when you can. In winter months, use an indoor drying rack. Use laundry detergent that can be refilled or try the new clothes-washing strips available at Ecossentials in Powell River that have minimum packaging.
6. Trees used for toilet paper, paper towels and tissue take 10 to 25 years to mature. Bamboo paper products are pricier but only take three to five months to grow, and there’s no tree guilt!
7. Invest your money in green energy alternatives and bank with community and planet-minded institutions that value our environment and aren’t aligned with fossil fuel companies.
8. We are drowning in a sea of plastic. Think carefully before you buy. When buying bulk, take your own containers to weigh and pay bulk food grocers. When buying at larger grocery stores, ask for paper bags, which can be composted, reused or recycled. Better yet, make or buy cloth bags for produce and bulk items and take reusable bags to pack your groceries in.
9. Our landfills are filled with what has been discarded and can still be used. Tell your family you are re-gifting or making gifts this coming year. Better yet, focus on shared experiences, not things.
10. Avoid paper gift wrap and get creative with wrapping. Host book swaps and purchase e-books to save trees.
11. Make more oxygen and help women support their families by donating to global tree planting organizations such as treesisters.org.
Lessen your eco footprint and invest in a sustainable future by what you do and stand for. Climate Action Powell River wishes you a year filled with green, climate-friendly choices that will help us all.
Ernalee Shannon is a board member of Climate Action Powell River, a non-profit society committed to helping the residents and businesses of Powell River to reduce their greenhouse gas.
