Dear Mrs. Greengenes,

I’m well known for making New Year’s resolutions and keeping them for most of January. This year I’d like to be successful. Tell me three things I could do to sustain the environment.

Because I don’t know what you’re doing now, I offer a list of ten ways you could improve the environment. Here’s the New Year’s countdown.

10. Buying local, organic food is your best option. It’s good for the Earth and your health. Buying local is second best. The dollars stay in your community and you get nutritious food. Non-local organic ranks third because of the expense and the pollutants needed to transport it.

9. When it comes to the paper or plastic bag choice, shun them both! Your best bet is a cloth bag that you can use time and again.

8. If your options for drying your hands are paper towels or electric blow dryers, go for the blow dryer or let them drip dry.

7. When your choice is to wash dishes by hand or put them in the dishwasher, use the dishwasher for cleaner dishes. It won’t take more water, and the temperature does help to sanitize them.

6. Rethink your driving patterns. Telecommute if you can. Carpool if you can’t. A good, practical fuel for vehicles doesn’t exist yet. Clump errands together in one car trip or co-op with neighbors to share the shopping. Walking and biking wherever possible improve your health and the Earth’s.

5. Shut off and restart all your electronic energy users. It takes more electricity to leave cars, computers, TVs and lights running than it does to stop and restart them.

4. Compact fluorescent light bulbs use less energy and last much longer. They contain less mercury than a watch battery, so use them and when they eventually do burn out, take them to a hazardous waste facility.

3. Drink your morning shade-grown, fair-trade coffee in a stainless steel mug. Shade-grown means you haven’t denuded the land. Fair-trade means the farmer can feed, clothe and educate his children. Stainless steel means the landfill never sees your cup.

2. Use permanent razors with disposable blades rather than disposable razors, and give up the toxic, over-packaged cosmetics that you toss out before they’re completely used. Our landfills don’t need the dioxin-producing plastic or other poisons.

1. Replace your old appliances/vehicles with new energy-efficient ones as soon as you can. Make sure the old ones are reused or recycled.

The MN Department of Commerce has some very good information and resources on their website with a list of their pamphlets for homes.

If everyone picked three new behaviors from this list, our environment would improve and we all could breathe easier. Happy New Year to you and yours.

Resource: Wake Up and Smell the Planet, edited by Brangien Davis with Katharine Wroth, Grist, 2007, $14.95