Welcome to YouChoose, a blog where we explore ways of living sustainably. This week I wanted to share a few thoughts about the past year.
I have never been one for new year celebrations and even less for new year resolutions. When I was younger perhaps, but lately new years always bring mixed feelings of time passing by and uncertain future.
A few years ago, as I started on a path to be more sustainable I focused on few goals easily achievable: Reducing dairy products and eliminating shopping plastic bags. One by one I introduced more and more goals such as eliminating palm oil, reducing waste, and consuming less. When trying to change lifelong habits it is easy to feel overwhelmed and frustrated. For this reason I share here a few achievements of the past year, focusing on the positive and knowing that there is much more that could be done, but we can’t do everything at once.
Palm oil elimination: Switched to sustainable laundry soap
This past year I have been able to keep up with the no-palm oil policy. Still occasionally I discover that I made a mistake and didn’t look carefully at the labels, however overall I have eliminated the noxious ingredient from more than 95% of my purchases. In the process I discovered wonderful alternatives to what I used to buy. The same holds for liquid soap, dish soap and shampoo which I have been making from palm oil-free soap bars. In 2021 I went one step further and switched to palm oil free conditioner and laundry soap. I think there are still a few more items on the list and hopefully I’ll work on those this year.
CO2 reduction: Switched to hybrid car
In 2021 I had to replace my car of 15 years and for the first time we purchased a hybrid model. We also downsized and got a smaller car that uses less gasoline. This choice was somewhat controversial as I wasn’t entirely sure of the environmental benefits of hybrid cars when we consider the entire lifecycle of the product. I’ll try to discuss this more in a future post.
Waste reduction: Started a compost pile
This is an area were I still have much improvement to achieve. Last fall when I collected the fall leaves I started a leaf compost pile and have been adding food waste there: Fruit and vegetable peels, green leaves, stems, and also coffee ground. Since starting, I noticed that my kitchen waste decreased almost 50%. I had never realized how much organic waste we were generating. Composting will be the topic of a future post once I see how the compost experiment turns out.
Outreach: Started to share what I am learning
One big achievement in 2021 was starting this blog (I think it has been one year this month!) and publishing the app. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep up with both this coming year. I also picked up two meetup groups that everybody is welcome to join (they are listed on the right). We meet virtually and in person to discuss sustainability and climate topics.
Now a quick look at some ideas for this year 2022. I am looking forward to expand my native garden to the front yard, grow indoor herbs, and venture in the realm of up-cycling. We’ll see what comes out of it!
If you want to share your achievements or failures in becoming more sustainable send me a post. I am looking for collaborators for the blog and the meetups!
You Choose 