Earlier this week I shared my overall goals for 2020. I didn’t share all of my goals because some are more personal and some I saved for this post! I was really inspired by Carly’s goal last year to make some small changes in her routines to move towards being more sustainable and more green–goals she seemed to really crush and expand on for this year. So in that spirit, here are a few goals I’m setting for myself to be more green!
- Use less plastic. This is more of an overall goal, but I’m thinking about packaging and food storage and bags.
- Reusable shopping bags and totes. I’m pretty good at this already when it comes to grocery shopping since I have a bunch of reusable bags in my car, but I want to get better at using totes and such when I’m doing other shopping so I don’t have to use bags from other stores.
- Reusable food storage. I’ve seen these stasher bags in a few places and from a few ~influencers~ I follow and I’m intrigued. My sister even got one for Christmas so I’m sure I’ll grab a few to use for food storage instead of plastic Ziploc bags. I’m also focusing on using glass tupperwares for leftovers and my lunches.
- Reusable straws and coffee mugs. Lately I’ve been really good about bringing my own metal straw with me in my bag (I have sensitive teeth so it’s better for me to drink cold beverages through a straw), but the coffee mugs is one Carly really inspired me to focus on this year. I am definitely guilty of using so many to-go coffee cups since I like to mobile order my Starbucks on the way to work. I’m aiming to either bring my own mug from home or skip the second cup of coffee altogether–so maybe this will help save my wallet in addition to some trees.
- Plan weekly menu. One of the things that I’ve found has really helped me cut down on food waste (and takeout waste) is planning out a weekly menu before I go grocery shopping. This doesn’t look like deciding what I’m going to eat for every single meal of every single day of the week–it looks more like me sitting down and going through my cookbooks and picking out 4-5 recipes that I want to make that week and then creating a grocery list off of that. This planning helps me make sure that I’m going to use everything I buy and has the added bonus of helping make dinner decisions easier.
- Sparkling water. I LOVE sparkling water. I’m obsessed. Last year I realized I was buying way too many bottles of it from Trader Joe’s so Brandon got me a Soda Stream for Christmas!! I’m already in love with it and have already saved so many plastic bottles since I can just make my sparkly water at home!
- Finally, consume less. This is something I’ve been trying to focus on for the past few years. I’ve been focused on slowly building up my wardrobe with quality items that will last a long time so that I don’t have to replace them often and create clothing waste. Stepping away from fast fashion (as much as I love shopping at Target and other stores) has been a huge goal of mine.
Have you made sustainability goals for this year? Any tips for me?
xoxo,
J
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