This year we asked everyone at Powder7 to come up with, and commit to, a personal environmental New Year’s Resolution. The idea here is that if enough of us focus on incremental, day-to-day, improvements on our personal environmental impact, it will add up to something big. Here’s what a few of our team members decided to do to help our planet. So far we’re over two months in and still going strong.
Blake – I’ve purchased an adapter for my Keruig coffee maker that allows me to put ground coffee into a pod and refill it. With this, I will greatly cut down on my plastic waste.
Max – My resolution will be to increase my awareness of different product brands (groceries mostly) and to avoid products that are obtained using unsustainable methods, especially meats, fish, and produce.
Chris – I’m going to try to ride my bike more to work!
Keagan – I’m horrible with resolutions, but I did get 4 reusable bags and put them in my car.
Matt – My environmental goals for the year revolve around making it so that my recycling bin is used much more than the trash can, and being better at using less heat and A/C by being smart about using windows and blinds. On a tangental note, I am trying to eat less beef because irresponsible cattle ranching is a huge contributor to many atmospheric concerns.
Lauren – My environmental New Year’s resolution is to cut my shower time in half to save water!
Andrew – My girlfriend and I are getting ambitious this year! We’re all about sustainability. I’m hoping to get almost all of our fruit and veggies from our garden by mid summer and completely cut cow products from our diet. Local produce only! I will also be leading a trail crew again this summer for hiking trail conservation and maintenance.
Terol – My environmental New Year’s resolutions:
- Enact a Powder7 commuter challenge in conjunction with Zack.
- Not only bike more to and from work, but in my day to day tasks including but not limited to: groceries, dinner take out, and beer runs.
- Donate or craigslist for reuse rather than throw away objects of little to no use to myself.
Mike – This year I am trying not to buy any water bottles or coffee cups. Something simple that adds up over the course of a year. Once the weather is a little nicer and we aren’t open so early I want to try and use the light rail/bike instead of driving in every day, I’m not ready to do 50 miles a day just yet.
Andy – First is to try to never buy a plastic water bottle. It’s so easy to carry around a Nalgene or any other type of reusable water bottle, and that is what I will try to do all the time. Also I am going to try and reduce “phantom” electricity usage, which means unplugging appliances that aren’t running so they are not minutely drawing power. For instance during the day completely unplugging my charging laptop, TV, phone charger, coffee makers, etc when not in use.
Mia – My New Year’s environmental resolution is to eat/buy less fast food. More than the health benefits, I want to reduce the amount of trash I create and purchase less food farmed via conventional farming methods.
Justin – I tend to have a pretty small carbon footprint because I don’t go anywhere or do anything or own much of anything. What I’m saying is: my life is full of mystery and adventure. I’ve got some ideas, though. In the house, I’ve pretty much stopped using an energy-hogging dryer. Instead, I use a couple of racks to air-dry the six or seven pieces of clothing that I wear over and over again. I also bought one of those glass water bottles I’ve seen people carry on their way to to what I assume is yoga class. I’ve always got that with me now, which, one hopes, will cut down on the number of disposable plastic bottles and aluminum cans I leave in my wake. Also, I stopped cooking beef. Full disclosure: that’s at least partly because I hate cooking anything.
Amy – I’d like to become a more responsible consumer by limiting non-essential purchases and supporting brands that focus on sustainability.
Jordan – My goal is to fly less in 2017. In December I completed an online carbon footprint calculator and while our family does great on home and car energy use, our big footprint was flying. We like to travel and went to Europe and Hawaii last year which added up. So, while I’m not giving up flying completely, I’m going to try to do more car vacation trips in place of flying in 2017.
Fun fact: one person driving 1,000 miles is roughly equal to the footprint of one person flying coach 1,000 miles. But as soon as you add people to the car there is almost no extra footprint for each additional person. Whereas on a plane, assuming you’re not taking a spot that would otherwise be empty, each additional person is responsible for the same carbon footprint as the first person.Bonus fun fact: much of the carbon footprint from flying comes from takeoffs and landings. So flying direct is more responsible than having stops.
