3 Ways To Make 2019 A Little More Green

New year, same Earth.

The beginning of a new year is when many of us resolve to make significant changes in our lives. However, it’s no secret that many resolutions go unfulfilled. When making choices to help make our lives more sustainable, it’s important to all of us that these goals are met. To make your goals more attainable, they should be specific. Setting goals like “save water” or “use less plastic” aren’t specific enough to be met effectively. What does it mean to save water or use less plastic? How do you know when you’re doing it?

Here are three easy, specific ways you can make a difference in 2019:

1. One Fruit or Vegetable

Choose one fruit or vegetable you like to keep around (or maybe wish you kept around) and grow it this year. Most fruits or vegetables can be grown in containers easily and don’t even need much care beyond watering, which is manageable in any house or apartment with just two square feet of outdoor space. Picking one food item like tomatoes, cucumbers, or zucchini is all the more attainable because there’s no need to do a heap of research – you have one clear focus. Eating food you grew yourself is incredibly satisfying, encourages healthy eating, and it reduces the amount of plastic you buy. If you end up with a surplus, you can even give some away to friends, family, and coworkers.

2. Two Meatless Meals Per Week

When it comes to making sustainable choices, we often overlook our eating habits. The meat industry is incredibly harmful to the environment. From the bodily emissions from the overpopulation of cows to the emissions from the meat packaging plants, the practice of having meat with every meal necessitates that harmful greenhouse gases be released into our atmosphere. While going vegetarian or vegan would have the most impact, it’s also a huge commitment not everyone is prepared or able to make. Cutting back on meat consumption by preparing two meatless meals per week will mix up your menu and help reduce the amount of greenhouse gases that end up in our atmosphere.

3. Three Green Products

Choose three products in your home or workplace and replace them with their more sustainable counterpart. These replacements could be as small as swapping your sponge for dishcloths, or as big as swapping all of your plastic food storage containers for glass alternatives. Choosing only three products allows you the freedom to decide how big or small you want to go, as well as consider your own lifestyle and needs. For example, if you have brand new plastic food storage containers, it would be more wasteful to get rid of them all right now rather than use them and replace something else like swapping single-use coffee products for reusable ones.

The process of setting and achieving goals is a personal experience that’s different for everyone. There is no one-size-fits-all version of sustainability. Setting specific, manageable goals helps ensure that these goals will not fall by the wayside as many resolutions often do. After all, we are all accountable to each other when it comes to our Earth.