New Year's Resolutions! #1 - Reduce Our Carbon Footprint

OK, here they are!  The long awaited New Year's Resolutions for 2012!  I've been mulling these over for the last several months and thinking about how to refine them so they're easy to monitor and achieve!  So here ya go, folks.  The first resolution iiiiiiiiiiiiiis................(drum roll)..................

Reduce our carbon footprint 

I don't mean I want to turn into a tree-hugging hippie (I think my dad would disown me if I did...) but next year I'm going to be more intentional about what I purchase and what and how I discard things.

This goal was inspired by Portland Waste Management somewhat forcing us to start a compost bin by reducing our trash pick-up to every other week.  Once we started throwing things in the compost that we normally would have thrown in the trash, we realized how easy it was to reduce the amount of trash we throw away every week.

And the best part is we're already doing a lot to reduce our carbon footprint.  We have energy efficient bulbs in all of our light fixtures and we keep the lights off when we're not in the room.  We use cold water to do laundry.    We only do dishes or laundry when we have a full load.  We let the dishes air dry rather than heat dry.  We recycle everything we can.  We don't buy bottled water.  We shop Craigslist first for furniture needs before buying something new.  We carpool to work and try to minimize unnecessary driving by taking the bus when it makes sense.  We donate books, clothing, and other items we don't want anymore rather than throw them away.  We even used recycled paint to paint our house in April.

Some of the extra things we're going to do are:

• Reduce the amount of "things" we purchase.  Bryann and I are pretty bad about buying "things" we don't really need, so one of our goals is to be more conscious buyers by reducing the amount of unnecessary goods we buy.  
• Shop used-goods stores first, like Goodwill, Salvation Army, or Plato's Closet.  Obviously I'm not talking about underwear or toothbrushes, but for clothes, dishes, bakeware, decorative items, books, or furniture.  We have a great Goodwill near our house and it's been fun to check it out from time to time over the last year that we've lived here.  But recently we really took a good look at what we could be buying second-hand at Goodwill rather than new at other stores.  
• Shop local and organic foods.  Frequent the farmer's markets, and be more mindful about where our food is coming from and how it is produced.  
• Bring re-usable bags to the grocery store

These are just little things we can do throughout the year to reduce our waste and the amount of energy we consume.  Nothing on this list is terribly inconvenient for us to do, and as an added bonus, it will help us save money!  

I'm looking forward to the challenge of reducing my "things" buying.  And since my mom trained me so well to be a bargain hunter, I actually like digging around the racks and shelves at Goodwill to find what I need!  

Here's a nice article on 101 Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint for those interested.  I think you'll find you already do a lot of the things on the list!