It's 2024! Time to set some goals. My first goal is to procrastinate more, so I am posting this two weeks late, just to keep things interesting.

2023 was the hottest year in recorded history. Climate Change and plastic pollution are creating so much chaos, loss of biodiversity, and is becoming exponentially more dangerous each year. So, if you haven't thought about how you want to get involved, it may just be time!

Nobody can do everything (especially because we know an immorally rich few cause the majority of the problem), but we can each do something. And it's amazing how often the changes we make for the planet make our lives better as well. These are just some ideas I have:

1. No Beef in 2024

This year, I stopped gently suggesting that maybe we should all eat a little less meat. No. I want 2024 to be the year we come for the beef industry. Beef is extremely harmful to our planet from its intense carbon and methane emissions, huge amount of land waste, and water pollution. Giving up beef is one of the few individual choices we can make that has a significant environmental impact. 

So let's drop beef in 2024. Maybe you can only do it for a year. But let this be the year.

How it Helps the Earth: 

No one who wants a livable planet needs to eat beef this year. Wouldn't it be amazing to read a "millennials are killing beef" think piece? How much impact could we have to make businesses shake in their boots if we all gave up such a dramatically, demonstrably terrible business? Companies know their environmental impact and assume that we as consumers don't care enough that they have to change. Dramatically cutting our beef intake sends a clear message to ALL companies- we do care, and we are paying attention. 

If you are clutching pearls for the tiny beef farmer this hurts, I challenge you to do the research on your beef you buy. Because the vast majority of beef farming and processing traces back to a handful of companies. This sweet small family farms are only a reality for you if you are actively seeking them out. 

How it Helps Your Life: 

Beef is pretty clearly not great for us, especially our hearts. It also tends to be quite expensive, where a lot of the substitutes are not. Picking up some meatless meals can be really fun to learn, and it offer a lot of nutrition you may miss out on if you are strictly meat and potatoes. 

Seriously, no beef in 2024. I promise, everything else I'm flexible. And there are a million ways to shift our diets to be more plant based or to shrink or meat consumption. They are all great, and you should do them, but also cut out beef for a year.

Other than giving up hamburgers, which is really my only hard line, I suggest just picking a few little goals that feel good for the year! We are all busy and life is draining, so make it easy on yourself. One of my goals is to simplify our schedule- I am literally trying to just do less! I am working my way towards doing nothing.

2. Get Political

This is a huge year politically in the United States, and we have all seen how much the leaders we choose effects the direction our country takes on the environment. If you care about the environment, you have to vote. Have to. But that is only the tip of the iceberg of what you can do to get involved in choosing environmentally-minded leaders.

How it Helps the Earth: 

Does anyone remember how terrible the EPA was 5 years ago? It was insane, and we can't go back again. I am currently not pleased with the current administration, but going back to Trump is a death sentence for our delicate planet. We can't do that. 

The information is clear- we need those in power to be on the side of the planet. We have to focus on that. You may think you have no power in this, but you do. The corporations have the money, but we have the people. You can help build up that voice. 

How it Helps You:

You get to be Leslie Knope, for goodness sakes! Getting involved politically has a bad reputation, but it can be an amazing way to make connections and build up community. If you are in the US, this is THE year to get involved. Nothing else matters more.

How to Do It:

Vote. Talk about how you are voting with others. When someone is voting the other way, ask respectfully about their views on the environment, even if it is frustrating or hard. Volunteer for a campaign. Keep an eye on all of your local elections. Write and call your officials. Participate in marches. Run for office yourself. It all matters.

3. Quit Fast Fashion

Fast fashion is another major culprit in pollution, climate crisis, and waste. Is it worth participating in the newest, hottest trend if your grandchildren won't even survive to laugh at you about it?

How it Helps the Earth: 

Fast fashion is a major source of pollution and greenhouse gases. It also uses tons of resources. But that is just the beginning. To try to keep up with the constant churn of the seasons, and working off the assumption that cheaper is always better, companies have resorted to a number of extremely unethical short cuts:

- First, they use synthetic fabrics, plastic fibers that are shedding off of all of our clothes, into our water, and back into our bodies.
- Second, and this is the one that keeps me up at night, cheap fashion absolutely guarantees cheap labor. That means for you to have that t-shirt from Target, at best someone was working in unsafe conditions. At worst, that person was a child, a slave, or actively abused. That person is just as much a person as I am, and no shirt is cute enough for that.

In other words, fast fashion is one of the most toxic forces in our lives and our world. It needs to stop to save resources, keep our water clean, and to stop climate crisis.

How it Helps You:

I think a lot about how many people are walking around, thinking they are doing the best they can to be ethical, moral, or good, but they are literally wearing the mistreatment of others everywhere they go. Changing our approach to fashion means letting go of certain expectations about who we should be and how we have to "keep up." In short, quitting fast fashion frees us from things that don't matter so we can focus on the things that do.


How to Do It: 

The best thing you can do is embrace all of the clothes you already own. Learn to sew and repair things. Go to a tailor and get what you already have fitted. Resolve to buy no more than one new clothing item a month. 

I read that we can only ethically buy 5 new items in a year. So that is my goal number from now on. I have to figure out how to make the clothes I already have work. 

There are so many cool ideas for this one and so many inspirational people out there thinking through this problem. Truly, no reason to stick with fast fashion.

4. Get Outside and Plant Something

How it Helps the Earth: 

We learned this year that one of our best defenses against climate crisis is simply by planting way more trees. We may not individually have the power to stop development, but we can get involved in this planting and change our approach to our own yards and spaces to make them greener (literally).

You can't fight for something you don't love. A true connection with nature can inform your environmentalism so you can fight the battles most real to you. We are alienated from nature and see it as a thing "out there." Removing that gap from our thinking (we all live IN nature and we ARE nature) makes us better advocates for the Earth. Nothing encourages this more than embracing gardening and nurturing as part of our lives.

How it Helps You: 

Spending more time outside has proven to improve our physical health, our focus and attention, and even our emotional health (some doctors are prescribing nature for depression). I can vouch for this personally; we spent the last year focusing on more outdoors time, and it made me a better, happier mom. Time outside is magic, and it heals.

Starting our garden is the best thing we ever did as parents. It gives our kids a strong appreciation of the labor and nurture behind what they eat. It also opens their mind to foods I would never have expected.

How to Do It: 

In my dream world, we would all take up big planting goals for 2024. Every household would plant 5 trees. Or every yard would give up the sad, boring lawn and fill it up with native plants and trees. But you can set your own planting goal- how many trees can you plant in a year? Or is there a local planting group you could volunteer for?

Planting is not your thing? No problem, check out this post for ways to make being outdoors a regular part of your 2024 routine.

5. Keep Talking About It! 

How it Helps the Earth :

Just keep talking about this stuff! Bring up the news, share cool memes, be honest and explain the changes you are making.

We see more and more people caring about the planet, but it's honestly not moving fast enough. Caring needs to be the norm in a big, culture-changing way. You can help keep this momentum going by being positive and speaking the truth! One of the most important things we can do is talk about it with our friends and family, because that is how culture shifts and minds change.

We need everyone to care. Everyone. So your caring and talking about it plants more seeds. Lots won't grow, but some will. And that caring can only be good for the Earth.

How it Helps You: 

The news about our planet and our future is consistently terrifying and depressing. The only way to stay optimistic, to feel hope, and to KEEP HELPING is to have community with other people. Don't face this stuff alone. If nothing else, if you are having a bad day (or exchange with someone) you can always DM me about it.

Don't be alone  worrying about this stuff. When you talk about it, other people will surprise you and challenge you. It makes life better to do things with others. Be a steward amongst stewards. Caring is deeply and powerfully contagious. Care loudly, and other people will care too.

How to Do It: 

Share (positive) things on facebook. Invite people to come to volunteer with you. Chat with the server after you turn down the straws. Brag about your kickass secondhand finds. Be that person, and bring up reusables at a meeting you are at. If you like concrete goals, post one thing about the environment a week or resolve to have one conversation about it a week.

Resolve to bring up your environmental choices once a week to people you meet or on social media.

One fewer flight, one letter to a company, one scroll of research on activists working near you, one day of political volunteering- it's all powerful! What are you doing for the planet this year?

Remember a couple of days ago when you were going to give up caffeine? How tired are you right now? These resolutions can be nearly impossible to keep, but I have some resolutions on deck that can make your life better without making you hangry or a caffeine-deprived zombie. These ideas will save you money and have a positive impact on the Earth.

Maybe you are saying to yourself, "Self, I don't actually care that much about my impact on the Earth. I find environmental stuff pretty boring. I don't know why I clicked on Barbara's stupid blog." I hear you friend, but these are things worth doing. They will absolutely make your life better now, but they will also make your life better 30 or 50 years from now. For nearly no effort. Let's do this. 

5. Fall in Love with Anything Used.
Fall in Mad, Passionate Love with Buy Nothing

When I was a kid, having used clothes meant you were a real charity case. Even in high school, I had a few used pieces, but they were mostly attempts to be quirky and make old man slacks happen for teenage girls (like many of my efforts at starting fashion trends, it did not work). If our generation wants to do better than our parents did, removing the stigma from buying things used would be a miraculous and powerful first step.

Because there are already so many things in the world, and the more we reuse what we already have, the more we save from landfills.

How It Helps You

Secondhand items are cheaper. You can buy things that are actually built to last for the same amount of money (or less) than the JUNK you would buy in most stores.

For example, a pair of Old Navy little boy jeans cost 20-30 dollars a pair. At my favorite consignment shops, a pair of jeans from the Gap, J Crew, or even 7 for mankind usually goes for 11-13 dollars. At Goodwill or Value Village, usually less than ten. 5 pairs of jeans per size, I have probably saved at least 50 dollars for better stuff.

And now you don't even have to have good consignment nearby. If you don't have anywhere nearby that sells much, you can also try Thred Up (boys jeans- 8 to 14 dollars). Ebay, and more online consignment.

But I can do better yet! If I get them on my local Buy Nothing group, I can get all the jeans my son needs for free. The Buy Nothing Project is a large set of hyper local groups where you gift your stuff or ask for things you need with your neighbors. We have got furniture, playhouses, and a solid percentage of our most-loved toys through this.  Facebook has lots of options for getting things secondhand, from Buy Sell Swap groups, Freecycle groups, online flea markets, and more. It is so easy and you can get things SO CHEAP.

So yeah, save way more money. Like hundreds of dollars a year. Pretty fun benefit.

How It Helps the Earth

Our Earth has too much damn stuff on it. Getting stuff secondhand shaves that excess down, little by little. It is one of the best ways to help the Earth, because it cuts down on waste, and anyone can do it because it is cheaper than not. And the more you shop secondhand, the more good that we can do. More than we can even imagine.

Most companies have one goal. To make money. They do this by using cheap unethical labor, cheap materials, and wasteful shipping across the Earth. They have to keep their prices super cheap, but you know what is often cheaper? And better made because it has already survived years of use? Thrifted furniture, kitchen tools, toys etc.

I can buy a plastic shopping cart toy from Target for 35 dollars. Or I can get the same basic toy for 5 dollars at Goodwill. And then give it away. That means at least three children played with the same toy. So at least 2 parents didn't go buy a new one. That's at least 2 toys less in the landfill. 2 toys less using the fossil fuels for shipping (yes, they aren't taking separate trips, but these things add up). 2 less sets of brand new packaging (damn you, twisty ties!). The more passes a toy gets, the more it helps the Earth.

Creating an economy where we devalue newness has so much power. Stop treating reuse as something charitable. It can be that, but it is also one of the ways we can help everyone.

How to Do It

Want a ridiculously easy resolution for 2018? I have a couple for you and they will all save you money and save the world from waste. So pretty kickass.

Just Try One

Go to a consignment store or thrift shop nearby and just see what they have. You can find so many things used. Refurbished electronics. Toys. Picture frames. All of the wood furniture ever. Go explore and be surprised. Set a goal to just go to 1 (or 3 or all) nearby consignment shop this year.

Make a Goodwill (or another consignment store) Your First Stop

Donate the Hell out of 2018

For 2017, we tried to give 2,017 items from our house in what we called the Great Donate. We didn't quite make it, but we are trying again in 2018.  This sounds like a lot, but it is less than one percent. The more you consign and donate, the more is available in an economy of reuse. If you aren't using it, let someone else have it.

we got this on buy nothing for free

Join a Buy Nothing or Freecycling Group

 YES. If you haven't heard of the Buy Nothing Project, you are missing out. These facebook groups allow you to freely gift with your neighbors, so you can ask for things you need or offer things you want to get rid of. Check out the groups page to see if there is one in your neighborhood. If there is, joining is just a few minutes of your life, and you won't regret it.

No luck? Still look around! Even small communities have freecycle, flea market, and yard sale type pages on Facebook. There are already groups out there to help people share or sell their things.

Brag about it

If you buy something used, don't be ashamed about it. So simple, but it makes a difference. You could resolve to brag about 3 used purchases this year. Help shift the stigma around secondhand.

Try Thred Up or Rent the Runway

 If you are saying to yourself "Self, I have been to the consignment stores and they suck for clothes" try Thred Up. This site has tons of clothes for women, children, and pregos (especially practical to not waste money on clothes). You could also try Rent the Runway, where you can borrow a beautiful dress and then return it. Bam! When you need to buy something, try these sites first. Once. And Done! Look how much you can accomplish!

These are all dresses bought secondhand- one from thred up, one from value village, and one from rent the runway. You can get beautiful things.

ALSO Rent the Runway has a big sale of stuff once a year, which I think every teen girl should go buy an amazing prom dress and every woman can buy an event dress, if she really wants to buy. You can buy someone accessory gifts for next year. You can get clothes at 10% of the price that have been so lightly used. And that sale is now. So check it out.

To Go Even Bigger

 Start a Buy Nothing Group in your neighborhood (or offer to volunteer as a moderator). I have been begging you all to do this for months! Let this be the year you go for it, because it builds community, cuts down on waste, and is all kinds of awesome. It is a time commitment, especially in the beginning, but you can count it as a good big thing you are doing for the world in 2018.




Buying used (or getting used for free on Buy Nothing) can be totally life-changing. I love the feeling of keeping things out of landfills, the challenge of finding things to reuse instead of brand new, but the saving money part is also pretty awesome. Check what options you have for 2018!

So 2017 has been epically terrible for the environment. If you are paying any attention at all, it can be so easy to feel terrified and helpless. But I am here to tell you, 2018 is the year we can turn this all around. But we need you, and your family, and your friends.

So I am going to throw out some ideas of resolutions you can make this New Year's. These are just suggestions of places to start, but they will make your life happier and the world better all at once. Way better than resolving to eat less cake, right?

Maybe it's the first time you have been thinking about trying to do something about it. Maybe you have been milling since America left the Paris Agreement or the pictures of plastic in our oceans were plastered everywhere.  But you aren't alone, and this is no time to feel hopeless- it's time to get to work.

The problem is HUGE. And we are all a part of it. But that means we have the power to make a difference and that's amazing. It doesn't have to be a huge change or a difficult one to make a HUGE impact. Make some little changes. Tell your friends about it. That's it. So let's get started as we head into 2018.

1. Take it Easy on the Meat.
 Give Cows a Chance.

How It Helps You

When talking resolutions and diets, we mostly think of cutting down on treats or snacks. Meat generally looks "healthy" because we need protein, but if you want to turn around your health, meat might actually be the PERFECT place to moderate. Cutting down on meat can help you lose weight, be more active, and protect you from heart disease, cancer, even impotence (unless you are Ron Swanson, obviously)!

Meat has more and more connections to health issue, so most doctors and organizations suggest cutting back. The American Institute for Cancer Research says you should eat no more than 18 ounces of meat a week. Most other sources I could find said 10-12 ounces. Lots of us eat WAY more than that, though it has been going down.

Want more evidence that eating less meat is better for you? Here, Harvard will tell you all about it.

from npr

How it Helps the Earth

Meat, especially beef and lamb, have absolutely terrible environmental impact, so eating less can really lessen your footprint. Red meats have extremely high CO2 emissions, use tons of fossil fuels and water, and are one of the top contributors to climate change. Top US nutrition panels are advising we all eat less for the environment and for ourselves.

Skipping that burger turns out to be a pretty kickass solution to all sorts of nonsense.
Have a drought? Eat less beef.
Driving way more this month? Offset it by eating less beef.
See a pattern? We all need to eat less beef. Vegetables use less water, less land, and creates less CO2 and waste. There is no downside here.

There are other benefits as well. Meats at supermarkets come wrapped in plastic and styrofoam. Mushrooms and beans? Not so much. Changing your approach can cut down on your waste as well.

Eating less meat means you can eat more ethical meat as well. If you are an animal lover and a meat lover at the same time, you might ask yourself whether the meat you buy actually upholds your respect for animals. I personally believe that animals can be treated humanely and with dignity, but I know that is often not the case, and you have to know what you are paying (more) for.

from Research on Global Markets

So, Let's Make A Change

This week, keep track of how many servings of meat you eat. If it actually feels like more than you need, maybe this is the perfect place to make a resolution. 

Am I telling you to become a vegetarian? Well, you can if you want, but I won't be joining you (been there, but can't pull it off now). We all need to curb our diets, and we can make a huge impact on our environment and our waistlines by cutting back in 2018. Here are some ideas of how-

Meatless Mondays

Have one day a week with absolutely no meat in it. Think of it as a fun challenge, because there are so many great recipes and ideas out there. I'll be sharing recipe roundups with vegetarian options every week to help you out. You could do all vegetarian lunches also- whatever works for you, but just make it part of your routine.

Plan Around Veggies

Yes, we may not be huge veggie fiends, but make the challenge of this year to try to learn to love them. It's as simple as changing how you talk about food. Usually, when someone asks what you are having for dinner, you reply "Chicken with..." why not say "Veggie pasta with chicken?" Less meat and more focus on stuff we relegate to sides can TOTALLY change how we think about food.

Make Beef a Special Occasion, not a Routine

Cut Down Portion Sizes

Make up the difference with vegetables or beans. You will be healthier, and eating 2 fewer ounces a portion will add up over the course of a year. Do a regular cheeseburger, not a double. You don't have to go cold turkey, just always make the smaller choice. We make a whole lasagna with two sausages or stretch 4 chicken breasts over 3 meals. It saves money and the Earth!

Know Where Your Beef Comes From

 Maybe you are thinking of how beef is important for your local economy. Sure that might be true, but is your beef actually coming from there? When you eat at a fast food restaurant, it has traveled. At many grocery stores, it has traveled. Buy less, buy local, and you can put that money to use where you live and get better quality meat.

If You Want to Do More

Already pretty light on meat? It might be time to dive into less dairy. I haven't eaten red meat for years, but I love milk, so I am going to work on cutting back.

Another option is to write your favorite restaurants and ask for more meat-free options or to know where their meat came from. They won't respond to the need for more vegetarian/ vegan food if they don't know people want it.

The theme for this year is to make personal AND systemic changes, so think about where you have power to minimize meat.

If You Want to go BIG

 Cut out some dairy or buy all of your meats local (that can be EXPENSIVE). Cut out meat completely and try living 2018 as a vegetarian. So many options! Fight for more meatless options or days at local cafeterias or restaurants that you are near often.




Animal products are a huge part of the Climate Change equation and a perfect place to start to make changes. It may not be the only change needed, but it is a huge little step that costs you nothing. You can take shorter showers, drive fewer miles, and turn off your lights when you leave a room. These are all great steps to take. But if you cut out half your servings of red meat a month, you will have more impact and do more good.

A video has been floating around Facebook this week about how Americans are addicted to stuff (you can see it on my facebook page). In it, there is a little George Carlin quote that puts our addiction to shopping perfectly into perspective-

"That's all your house is. A place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff."

Gah, so true.

Americans do have a lot of stuff. In fact, we all have way too much stuff. The average American home has over 300,000 objects in it. Think about that. If the average cost of one is 10 dollars, we have 3 million dollars put into a home full of things we mostly don't need. That's a lot of plane tickets or donations or amazing experiences.

 At first, our hoarding might not seem like an environmental issue (more like we are all living in light, less feces-filled versions of Hoarders), but it causes all sorts of problems.

We don't know what we have. We buy repeats of things we already own. How many sets of cards do you have in your house? How many big nights of bridge are you hosting? We repeat purchases because we simply cannot keep track of 300,000 things. 

We burn up fossil fuels and waste natural resources. American overconsumption has been pretty clearly linked to pollution and other environmental problems (hello, Climate Change). Our stuff travels long distances (more than most of us travel) burning fossil fuels as it comes. Think about how much power and energy it takes to make and move all these things we don't need or even want enough to pay an ethical amount for.

We create massive amounts of waste. This is a biggie. Let's look at clothes. Americans across the board have way too much clothes, most of which is unethically made to keep it very cheap. For example, on average, we own 39 pairs of shoes per household. So if your home has 2 people in it, you could wear a different pair of shoes every day for 2 weeks and still have some left over. This is all well and good (and makes me think of those celebrity Cribs closets with all that stuff, Mariah Carey is probably moving the average number up all by herself). We all have more clothes than we need, and cheap "fast fashion" keeps selling us on trends when we are in no danger of heading out naked.

The problem is that the average american makes about 65 pounds of textile waste a year. A year! Americans as a whole are tossing out billions (yes billions) of textile waste every year. And with polyester and other plasticy textiles out there now, tons of this will never biodegrade. That's just the clothes.

Alright, so that's a bummer, but the damage is already done, right? 

Well, we definitely can all work on buying less this year, but we can also do a world of good by turning our spring cleaning into a spring gifting. It's going to do a world of good to minimize the stuff in our house, especially when we pass those objects on to further use (NOT a landfill)

-You can Save Money, Skip Repeats- We buy so many things because we aren't sure whether we have it or not. Just removing doubles can clear some of the house and help you redefine what you actually "need."

- You get a Clearer House and Clearer Schedule. Cleaning out our stuff helps us have a much stronger sense of what we already have and what we actually need. The other big benefit of getting things out is that you will spend less time fighting through those same piles of clutter that just get moved from corner to corner (this is even truer for those of us with toddlers. You can test everything in your house by asking if it is worth an extra hour of cleaning, because picking things up off the floor a thousand times adds up).

- You Get to Help Others. What a nice thing, right? Lots of kids are out in the world with no toys, so if you give them 1/3 of your kids, you are really doing something good. Homeless people all over our country need warm blankets, hats, and socks. Like the ones in your closet. You can give away your wedding dress to a military bride or gift your old Christmas card to a fundraiser for kids with cancer. There are real things like this out there and EVERYWHERE, the trick is just to find them. So we are going to work on that.

- You Keep the Earth Cleaner. We have all been part of a purge before where you are so desperate to get things clean and quick that tons of useful stuff heads right to the dump. It may feel freeing, out of sight out of mind, but that stuff all goes somewhere, and it is polluting our world.

But the best part is you are actually doing double the good. Because you are not only keeping your stuff out of the landfill, but by giving it to someone else to use, they won't have to buy one as well. So you have cut consumption in half (at least! If we are talking baby clothes, a onesie can go through 5 or 6 kids before it's time to call it) AND one less thing will EVER make it to the landfill.


This, to me, is also a Christian mission. Jesus was pretty clear with the rich man (who could be any of us) that he needed to be willing to give up all his stuff and follow him, and the man balked at the suggestion. I spend a lot of time thinking about this story, because now I get that the request may seem like a sacrifice, but it also seems super liberating. It was a test, yes, but it was also a chance to be freed from the things that bound him most. I also don't think it is a coincidence that Christ's most notable moment of anger was about commerce infiltrating holy spaces. Our stuff absolutely gets in the way of our spiritual mission and our call to love others.

You may say "But B, we really don't have that much to give up" or "well, we did a big purge last year, so there isn't much left." If you have more than you absolutely need, then you can give some away. You will be surprised what you find to gift.

If we tithe 15% of our income to church every year, it makes sense to me that we would also tithe 15% of our stuff (that's 45000 objects. That's how out of control this problem is. I am suggesting a little over 1%) to people who need it more than we do.

You certainly don't have to be a Christian to see a ton of value in giving to others while also simplifying your own life. Reusing items isn't just about charity cases. We all need to fall in love with buying and offering used stuff to change our economy and .

Our generation has to be the first one to completely let go of the false promises of "new" and "having it all" if we don't want our children's world to look like the beginning of Wall-E. This isn't all that hyperbolic; our oceans are literally filling with plastic, our atmosphere is burning with smoke, and we destroy more every year with the model passed down to us. We need to share what we have and redefine what we need. We need to let go of things we don't use so someone else can use them and that much less lands in the garbage. If we all do this, we will have more money to buy the things we can't find used, and we will keep thousands of pounds of perfectly good stuff out of a landfill. That's amazing.

So here is the challenge. 

The Great Donate 2017 aims to get 2,017 items out of our home and into someone else's use. 

And I want you to try it too.

Send 2,017 items out of your home for re-use elsewhere. In other words, you can take your unneeded stuff and...

-Gift them. Who doesn't love some hand me downs? Your siblings or niece or neighbor down the road could use something that is old hat to you. People are struggling to make ends meet. It isn't a problem way out there somewhere, but a challenge so many you already know are facing. Especially for the biggest things (furniture, plate sets) and the smallest things (granola you aren't going to eat, old hangers, excessive nail clippers, etc), personally offering them makes sense.

 You could also try joining a freecycle group or the amazing Buy Nothing Project, which I constantly pimp because they build community, help you get rid of your stuff, and keep massive amounts of seeming junk out of landfills. If you haven't heard about them, check out their site and consider joining your local group. If you have but there is no group where you are, consider starting one and you will have done your good deed for the year.

- Donate them. So many things you don't need anymore could be of great use to an organization or individual. You can start with Goodwill or Salvation Army, but there are even places to donate old greeting cards, used wedding dresses, or the junky old sweaters no one wants to wear (Goodwill will take them too- please don't throw any textiles away in 2017).

-Sell them. Like I said, re-use doesn't have to be all about charity cases. If we all considered buying things used first, we could save tons of money, be more intentional about our shopping, and keep tons of good out of landfills. So, let this be the year you check out consignment stores or antique shops for clothes, kids' stuff (seriously, there is no reason to buy kids' stuff new), and house goods. You can also sell some of your least used stuff there. They also have TONS of facebook groups for Buying, Selling, and Trading (not to mention eBay), so check if your neighborhood has one. You may make a bit of money, and you know the person who bought it really wants it.

-Recycle them. Once you have tried all the other options (and before you toss all that trash), be sure you know what your recycling options are. Plastic film from your groceries can go back to some grocery stores to be recycled. Some lumber places will accept wood to make chips. There are so many options that might surprise you.

Very important to remember...

- Items you just throw away don't count toward that 2,017. In fact, I am going to try to do research on as many types of waste as possible to as few items as possible just end up in the garbage. This isn't just a challenge about spring cleaning your house (though that is good too) it's about acknowledging that so much of what we toss could still be useful to someone, and putting it back into the world to get more life.

2,017 is a big number (though it isn't even 1% of the 300,000 in your home), and I know digging into those piles or corners that never quite get worked through is an intimidating task. But we can all do this, the key is to just get started.

Here are some easy tips to get started-

1. Make a plan- My goal is to have 2,017 items donated this year, and I plan to do the bulk of that before March 31st. That means we have a big purge in store. But trying to take everything on at once just leaves me feeling overwhelmed, so I am going to do it one room at a time. There are about 12 weeks between now and the end of March, so I am planning to do about a room a week. Pace yourself in a way that makes sense for you, but writing the plan down creates a real commitment.

2 Join Local Gifting Groups- Check out your local Buy Nothing or Freecycle groups (or start one!). Go visit your local consignment stores. Get a sense of what need is most immediate to you, and make giving a part of your regular facebooky life.

3. Make a Space- When we are gifting a lot on Buy Nothing, our dining room gets taken over by stuff waiting to be picked up. It can be a hot mess, but then it is all gone. The age old wisdom is that to really clean, first you have to make a bigger mess. It's so true, so make sure you have a place for all that stuff to go on their way out the door, or you might go crazy and give up.

4. Establish a Stuff Purgatory- You run across things that would be useful if you just knew where the cord was, or that you would give to a certain person but you have to see if they want it. Have a space for those things. After a month, if they are still there, then they have to be donated. No reason to keep a big collection of question marks in your house.

5. Turn your Hangers- Turn all your hangers the wrong way. When you put clean (see, used) clothes away, you can turn the back to the correct way. At the end of this season, see what never got used. Do this all year long, and you will be able to easily assess. Have too much kitchen stuff? Put a sticker on each and take it off when you use it. You get the idea; there are a lot of ways to self-assess here.
6. Just Start! I know it can be intimidating to take that first step, but pick a closet and go. Once you start to shave things down, you will get that freeing, lighter feeling, and that can help you pick up momentum. I am going to write about this again next week, so have a goal to have given something away by then.



Alright, I will check in from week to week with lots of answers on where to donate things. Be sure to come back to the site and let me know your goals and how it is going! If you have a good pile going out, take a picture with the hashtag #greatdonate2017, so I can oogle your awesomeness. I will update you on our progress as well. It's a big challenge, but in a month or two, you will be so glad you did, and hundreds of other people will be putting your dust-catchers to use. That's amazing!

We are going through so many of the things you might want to purge. If you want specific answers, they may be here already. Check-

Worn Out Clothing
Hangers
Old DVDs
VHS Tapes
CD and DVD Cases
Dishes, Glasses, and Silverware
Old Greeting Cards


If you have specific things you want to get rid of, but you aren't sure how to do it, please ask me! I will do the research for you to make things as easy and simple as possible.

4. No More Water Bottles!

Come on, you know this already. Water bottles take something most of us get for free (often stealing it from the American people), wrap it in toxic and terrible plastic that will not decompose in any of our lifetimes, and sells it back to us. It is mind-boggling and ridiculous that this could even happen. It is even more shocking that it actually works. Cartoon villians like those jerks at Nestle are making money hand over fist by taking advantage of us.

And we give them money to do it. These giant corporations are taking advantage of us and acting like crooks, and then we hand them our money. What!?!?

This is the narrative we are facing down around every corner with our economy. The rich keep getting richer because we give them our money after they have already stolen from us. But we have a choice, and in the case of bottled water, the choice is clear. We just have to stop.

Plastic water bottles account for over one million tons of waste every year. One million tons (at 2000 pounds a ton, that makes the waste the same weight as 13 million people) . That is waste that is made of fossil fuels and will never biodegrade. Water bottles are forever. You can read even more about this here.

Now, maybe giving them up completely isn't feesible for you. Alright, here are some mini-resolutions that should work.

Use a Reusable Water Bottle- You can fly with one, keep one in your bag, and drink from one at home. My favorites are glass, like these from Lifefactory. I also love Liberty Bottleworks.

Never Drink a Water Bottle at Home- If you have safe water, which not everyone does, there is literally no reason to drink a water bottle at home. Get a glass or a cup out. Keep water bottles out of your fridge and your home.  You can get a filter fill your water from your tap.

Take it Easy on Pop- I know I haven't had a water bottle all year. But I do get a pop when we travel. I am going to start either getting them in a paper or reusable cup (no straw!), or not at all. Any one time use plastic bottle is bad news.

Oh friends, this is a simple step we can all take this year. It will save you money. It will stick it to those who think they can steal American water and still make money off of us. And it will keep so much plastic out of our landfills and water. It's an obvious step, but one that we don't truly commit to. It's time.

To Go Even Bigger- Seek out products that recycle plastic water bottles. They are out there, from Polywood benches to my favorite pens to planters. Recycled water bottles are a thing, so send the market the message that it is profitable to do the right thing and start recycling these menaces.

Access to water is a huge issue in the United States and will most definitely continue to be so in the next four years (as our President Elect is reported to be an investor in some of the oil lines like DAPL that threaten water sources). But the right of clean water is a non-partisan issue, and it might be a good place to get involved.

Yay water! Now, if you want more ideas, check out #3!

6. Do More, Buy Less

Darling, let's be adventurers, not bargain shoppers.

Let this be the year that you spend more time (and money) accomplishing goals and making memories. It's time for us to realize our shopping doesn't give us what we want, it keeps us from it.

We get a constant stream of the same old message. We don't have enough. We aren't enough. We look for deals so that we have extra dollars to get more stuff. We fantasize about abundance. We work and work so that we can buy more stuff. This is an old problem, but clearly we haven't solved it, because shopping hasn't slowed in America. If stuff is going to make us happy, shouldn't we all be elated already?

You can roll your eyes at me and think you need everything you buy. Maybe that's true, but the average American home has 300,000 items in it. Do I need 300,000 things? I am not sure, but when I think about that number, it makes me less anxious to buy something new.

This super-consumerism is now being linked to climate change (it makes sense, how much fossil fuel are we burning through when our stuff travels way more than we do?). It also is filling up landfills at an alarming rate. Worst of this? Textiles. Americans toss on average 65 lbs of textiles a year, and 11 million tons of textiles are tossed in the US this year. We have so much that we don't need or that quickly goes out of use or style (because it is cheap junk) that we are making epic mountains of garbage.

Materialism is a problem often discussed but much more difficult to solve. Much like overeating seems like an easy problem to offset (just stop eating), this actually is really complicated and requires us to step back from the basic routines that shape our lives. You have to know your own habits to know how to break them, so it really requires some self-awareness. These are just my best ideas of how to self-assess and to step out of the cycles we get stuck in.

Cancel your Cable- Stream away friends, but cable just bogs us down with an ever-growing list of things we "need." This is especially true for kids. Just abandon it.

Make Buying Things a Scheduled Thing- Rather than just picking things up here and there, pick a day (every other Tuesday, the first Saturday of the month, etc) and only buy then. You can keep a list, or put things in your checkout, but if the day comes and it isn't still important, skip it.

Cross Something Off your Bucket List- Start saving for that thing you want to do. Every time you don't buy something, put that money toward that dream. You can ask, over and over again, if that candy bar or extra mascara is more important to you than the big stuff. If you make the choice that simple, you stop spending money on things you actually don't care about.

Stay out of Walmart, Target, and the Like- These stores are also well-designed to "remind" you of things you need. If you need it, you would have thought of it.

Make a List, and Check it Twice- I am going to try this, because I think shopping lists might help me stick to what I actually need.

Gift Experience Presents- My motto this Christmas was "Presence not Presents" and I am going to try to keep it through the year. I am also setting new limits on gifts based on what worked in 2016- one birthday gift and three Christmas gifts.

Reuse what You Already Have- When you say "We need a new...", stop, and ask yourself if you can fix the original instead. This is especially true of clothes. Let go of trends and this idea that the perfect thing is out there.

Maybe you don't need a trick for cutting down your shopping, but it might help. Either way, buying less saves you money, time, and keeps things out of the landfills. Having more than you need isn't a sign of success, so let this be the year we truly prioritize quality over quantity.

To Go Even Bigger- Commit to a "No Buy" month. Only buy food for a month. By fasting from shopping and buying, you can reset your perception of what you need. It's a big leap, and it might make for a rough month, but you may come out the other end transform.

from http://alanbetts.com/understanding-climate-change/question/the-climate-energy-balance-of-the-earth

So we have crossed out of the truly horrifying 2016 into 2017! Woot New Years and new starts! For 2017, I have resolved to stop bossing people around.

I kid. You know I have all sorts of suggestions for you. Let's talk resolutions, people.

The common wisdom is that everyone makes resolutions and no one keeps them. They go on a no sugar diet, and it isn't long before they realize just how freaking hard it is and fall off the wagon. I know I have done it. You take a big leap or make a big proclamation, but it is too much and you can't make the change sustainable.

I hear the same thing about making green choices all the time. You are going to go zero-waste or take another big leap, but you just can't stick with it. The environment faces huge and complex problems, so our steps are also multi-faceted and complex. You aren't going to make a big impact in a day.

The more you read about the problems facing our Earth, the more overwhelming (and scary!) it feels. That feeling that the problem is so much bigger than us can make us feel totally helpless and cause us to do nothing. Just like how you might realize a week from now that sugar is in everything, you might realize the problem you are out to solve is too big for even your hugest leap, so why try?

But caring about the environment makes me more aware every day that all of our little decisions matter, and they really do add up. You try because it does matter, because in the end we have to solve this problem as a team, and you try because even if you didn't do great with your last decision, the next one matters too.

So make the goal for 2017 to just keep trying, because the worst thing to be is apathetic, or to cut yourself off, or to decide if you can't do everything right it isn't worth the battle. It always is.

So, rather than propose you move into your powerless cabin in the woods and knitting your clothes out of your own hair and spending your weekends hugging trees, I have simple suggestions that will easily fit into your everyday life already. This isn't cutting out sugar (because COME ON, sugar is awesome), it is having one less cookie a week. These are changes you can sustain and they will MAKE A DIFFERENCE. Our planet is facing some huge problems, but we can make things better together.

These are my ideas. I don't expect anyone is doing all of them. I am not doing all of them. But maybe one will speak to your heart or spark an idea that makes sense for you. Just do something.

from Amazon

7. Say No to Straws

When there is so much waste in the world, why worry about something as small as a drinking straw?

Because it adds up. And it adds up to a lot.

Americans use over 500,000,000 plastic straws a day. They use them once, and they are thrown away. Many of those will end up in the ocean. And then this happens. These plastic straws, because they are so small, are incredibly hard to pick up, and in an average American's lifetime, he or she can amass a huge volume of waste in these straws. By 2050, the oceans will have a higher volume of plastic than fish, so it is time for all of us to cut plastics from our lives to save the ocean for our children.

Plastic straws, in most cases, are not needed, and studies have shown that if a server doesn't offer a straw, the diner doesn't miss it. Most of us can handle just using the glass (and that is usually what we do at home).

It is time to give up the straws.

How do you do it? Simple. "Can I have an orange juice/ mai tai/ iced tea/ water. And no straws please." It's as easy as that "No straws, please."

It doesn't always work (some servers just aren't listening), and I have gotten my share of raised eyebrows because the server has never heard that request before. But it costs no money (in fact it saves the restaurant time), no work, and you can cut hundreds of straws out of that water. You can save a freaking sea turtle for goodness sake.

Ready to ask for noplastic straws? Awesome. You can actually sign a pledge with the Plastic Pollution Coalition to make a real commitment to this goal.

Sometimes you really just are a straw person. This resolution can still work for you! Check out my Don't Buy, Instead Try post about plastic straw alternatives that you can tuck into your bag if you are the kind of person who uses straws often and for good reason.

The plastic straw is a completely avoidable evil. You can do this.

If you Want to Go Bigger- Take the time to encourage your favorite restaurants to go plastic straw free. They can offer paper straws instead or only provide straws when asked. The Plastic Pollution Coalition has good suggestions to reach out, including a little information card you can leave with your check.  The Last Plastic Straw is geared toward businesses as well, so they can find signage and other good ideas for explaining the change to their customers. You can leave them a review on yelp as well. The more we make this simple choice, and actually tell businesses why, the more owners and managers will consider whether they should serve their last plastic straw (they should).

Want more? Check out Number 6 here!