An update on my New Year's resolutions and other efforts to be greener

I've been doing fairly well with most of my environmental New Year's resolutions. The most successful has been the one that says I will aim to eat at least one potato each day. There have been only a few days when I didn't eat any potatoes. Eating lots of potatoes has enabled me to reduce the amount of plastic-wrapped bread and pasta I eat, which I'm pleased about. I've also done fairly well with reducing elevator trips and writing more letters. The only abysmal failure has been the resolution to wake up earlier.

I'm also trying to green my life in other ways, with mixed results. A major sticking point is packaging. I'm doing well at buying produce and snacks without packaging, but products like soymilk are available only in packaged form. I've been using packaging-free or low-packaging body care products, but am not at all satisfied with them and am ready to give up and return to bottled shampoo and Merry Hempsters lip balm.

One thing that frustrates me is that even when shopping at the eco goods store, most of the products I see don't seem very eco-friendly to me. Take To-Go Ware, for example. I fully understand why people whose concern is their own health will choose to buy stainless steel food storage containers. There's a lot of concern about chemicals in plastic containers leaching into food, and if a person's priority is his or her own health, To-Go Ware's containers are an excellent idea. But, as an environmentalist, I can't just do what's best for me. I need to think about the impact on other people and animals, and for them it's much better if I keep using the plastic containers that are already in my kitchen. Buying stainless steel containers means minerals being mined, processed, and transported, which is bad for the environment! Even if my home was destroyed and I needed to start over, it'd be better for the environment to get a bunch of used plastic containers through Freecycle than to order a set of brand new To-Go Ware containers.

What I desperately want access to is a store that sells bulk liquid shampoo, bulk peanut butter, bulk jelly, loose carrots, unwrapped sliced bread, and so forth. I marvel when I read about the things some plastic-free bloggers are able to buy without packaging from the stores in their cities and wonder why my city, which is progressive in other ways, is so far behind.

I'm not much of an organizer, but am toying with the idea of starting a small co-op that would stock only bulk items. There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of people here who are as frustrated as I am by the limited choices for plastic-free and packaging-free shopping. I expect it would take a lot of time and money to run a co-op, so I don't want to rush into it, but it's something to consider. Alternatively, if I could get a group of people to put pressure on the stores with the limited bulk offerings, that might achieve better results than I can achieve on my own.

Right now, however, I need to act on my resolution to wake up earlier each morning by getting some shut-eye. I don't think I'll ever find it natural to go to bed at a reasonable hour and wake up with the sun, but I'll at least give it a try.

New Year's Resolutions

Since childhood, I've been a fan of making resolutions on January 1. I'm not so deluded as to believe I'll keep all my resolutions, but I do find January 1 a good opportunity to take stock of what I should do differently in my life.

For 2009, I want several of my resolutions to be environmentally motivated. The problem is that I'm already doing almost everything it's practical for me to do. The easy resolutions, like giving up plastic carrier bags, were made ages ago and are already being kept.

Here are the resolutions I've come up with thus far. I'd welcome suggestions for others:

Eat at least one potato each day. This may sound like a strange resolution, but potatoes are one of the few foods I can get that are grown locally and sold without any plastic packaging, so replacing other foods with potatoes will mean a reduction in the amount of fuel used to transport my food and the amount of plastic packaging I throw out.

Wake up earlier each morning. I have electrical lights on for hours each evening, then use blinds to block out the sun most mornings. I could reduce my consumption of electricity by getting up earlier.

Plan elevator trips wisely. Taking the stairs isn't feasible where I work, so I ride elevators many times each day. My resolution is to plan my errands so that I go only once or twice per day to any given floor instead of riding up and down repeatedly.

Write more letters. I make a lot of consumer decisions on the basis of packaging and other environmental considerations. It's time I wrote to more manufacturers to tell them why I've switched to or away from their products.