New Year, New You

Eight ecofriendly resolutions for a happier, healthier 2008

1. Bring camaraderie to your commute
Carpooling saves gas and turns traffic delays into socializing opportunities. Find fellow riders at goloco.org and zimride.com.

2. Be an informed eater
If you're torn between the trout and the halibut, text 30644 with the message "FISH" and the type you're considering to learn which is the more sustainable choice (fishphone.org).

3. Junk the junk mail
Inundated by catalogs but too lazy to call and get off their mailing lists? Just register with catalogchoice.org, which will do the legwork for you. (Services like greendimes.com and 41pounds.org stop other kinds of junk mail too--for a fee.)

4. Become a mix master
DIY kits make it easy to blend up your own nontoxic household cleansers, skin products, and pet-care items (all from eco-me.com) as well as all-natural baby food (freshbaby.com).

5. Learn to share
At neighborrow.com and borrowme.com, you can find neighbors willing to lend you books, tools, or other things you'd rather not buy.

6. Give back on your next getaway
Count whales or plant trees in exotic locales--opportunities abound at greenvolunteers.com and in The Ethical Travel Guide (Earthscan) and The 100 Best Vacations to Enrich Your Life (National Geographic Books).

7. Just say no to bottled water
If tap water is good enough for some of the country's top restaurants, isn't it good enough for you?

8. See more meaningful movies
Sick of Hollywood fluff? Subscribe to a socially conscious film series at earthcinemacircle.com or ironweedfilms.com and get cinematic conversation-starters delivered to your door.

What's your green new year's resolution? Share it with us in the comments section.

(Illustrations by Josef Gast)

Comments

[sanjdimes]

Greetings from Greendimes.

Thanks for including us as one of your resolutions. Def. need to checkout your travel suggestions.

[Carol Waskovich]

The suggestions offered are usually good ones. My problem is I want to share them with members of my church, but so many do not have computers and that limits the number of people who can implement the suggestion.

[Jennifer Hattam]

Thanks for your comment. The first five suggestions were also published in the January/February issue of Sierra magazine. If you have a church newsletter or something like that, you're welcome to reprint the resolutions there, as long as you attribute the material to the Sierra Club. Please let me know if you have any questions. And happy new year!

[Al Pugsley]

Convert a car or truck to all electric as I have to help get us off foreign oil.

[Linda]

Regarding January 1, 2008:
"1. Bring camaraderie to your commute
Carpooling saves gas and turns traffic delays into socializing opportunities. Find fellow riders at goloco.org and zimride.com."

Mayo Clinic Arizona provides vanpools to employees at no cost. The vanpools are employee run and operate like carpools, with Mayo supplying the vehicle, the gas and the maintenance. I've made some of my best friends in the Mayo vanpool, saved a lot in gas and frustration, and I think Mayo should get extra points for participating in green solutions.

[Leo]

i plan on getting as many items from sites like www.swaptree.com and www.craigslist.com

[Karen L. Alaniz]

My New Year's resolution is to learn more about issues that will make my world a better place, and then implement them. How's that for a tall order?

I am looking for any and all ideas I can implement, so sites like this are invaluable. Thanks! ~Karen

[Jennifer Hattam]

CNET reports that "fifty-eight percent of adults age 24 or younger plan to make a 'green' new year's resolution." The most common ones cited were reducing energy use, recycling more, and using less toxic household products.

http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9834924-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

[Lindsay]

My new year's resolution is to stop using plastic grocery bags. I am taking my own cloth grocery bags to the grocery. If the cashier tries to give me a plastic bag I refuse them and tell them I do not use plastic bags as they are bad for the environment. I want to make a statement so other people hear it and start to catch on. If you make the commitment to stop using the plastic bags then you have to do it every time and it may mean going home to get your cloth bags if you forget them, or buy new ones.

[lisa lavy]

It’s the end of the year.

My vacation days are long gone, spent on moving into my new house and installing flooring.

Its cold out and getting colder. Freezing rain and ice storms are becoming a little too frequent this year for my tastes. Do you see where I’m going with this yet?

I need a vacation. Not just any vacation but a serious, week long, tropical drink sipping, relaxing beach, all inclusive, complete mind resetting vacation.

This is where Holiday Travel of America comes in. http://www.Holidayways.com Travel of America is a leader and a standard-setter in the incentive travel industry, with a solid reputation for creating state-of-the-art travel packages that combine the highest value with the lowest possible cost. Offering long and short holidays, mid-week vacations, cruises and airfares, they literally have everything the vacationer could want.

Holiday Travel of America offers many business-to-business packages too. One that particularly caught my eye is the Employee Incentive package. How would your work performance be affected if you knew that a tropical vacation of the boss’s tab was at stake? I recommend printing out the page on Employee Incentives and leaving it in a strategic spot in your boss’s office. If that doesn’t work, maybe fax him a copy or set Holiday Travel of America’s website as the homepage for his browser.

I think that I’m more than willing to bombard the management at my workplace in order to convince them that a vacation is just the thing to spice up productivity and increase the old bottom-line!

This month’s specials include trips to Phuket, Thailand with prices as low as $20 per night and Mexico and Caribbean All-Inclusive Packages. I personally would be more than happy with either or better yet, both!

So if you’re looking into getting away, getting someone else away or getting someone to get you away as a reward for years of hard work, check out Holiday Travel America

[Kamala Rocher]

I agree that a vacation is a good thing and getting the overlords of big business to finance a bit of respite for those that provide them with the man/woman power to accumulate their wealth is not a bad idea (and could incite the aformentioned man/woman power to work even harder on their behalf - not sure if I'm in favor of that part but whatever). However is popping off to the tropics for the week and sipping cocktails provided by underpaid and exploited local inhabitants (who have lost the basis of their traditional economy due to the effects of globalised commerce)a very green way to relax?? I have to admit I'm a bit shocked.
Surely we could find ways to relax and nurture ourselves without contributiong to the pollution (round trip flight - very dirty) or the exploitation of local economies, or the enrichment of big corporations (who are pretty damn rich already thank you).
Just a thought

[mary jane]

Do you own a business, it doesn’t matter if yours is new or a member of Fortune 500..but have you tried boosting your business traffic by contacting Holiday Travel of America? The best in the business there is to create vacation packages that will surely deliver results, will make surely make your clients contented and extend doing business with you.
Holiday Travel of America has been in the business and established since 1988 that has continually developed high perceived value travel incentives at low wholesale cost to numerous businesses and industries including Healthy Choice, Tropicana, Weight Watchers, Kodak, and Family Fitness Centers, to name a few.
Their holiday packages are presented as State of the Art Premiums where you and your clients will have the best vacation values. These premiums are utilized as corporate incentives as clients and closing tools. Holiday Travel of America (HTOA) offers them high in value but at the lowest cost to companies and businesses. Thus stretching your financial capacity but also allowing you to generate clients who love to vacation.
Check out http://www.holidayways.com

[lisa lofty]

While planning a holiday travel, you need to decide at the onset what you want, for example, do you want to relax on a beach or enjoy roller coasters and water rides. If a good deal on holiday travel is what you want, check out if travel packages are available around your destination. Such packages, which combine airline fares, hotels and car rentals together, are offered by many travel companies, making it a cost-effective as well as convenient deal to go for.
Holiday Travel of America has been offering great travel services for around 20 years already. Being one of the pioneers, you can trust their world class services and valuable effort to provide best travel services.

http://www.Htoaarda.com offers competitive travel and tour packages such as Caribbean Cruises, Weekend Holiday that will take you Cancun or in pristine beaches of Florida. They can also customize a travel package based on your preferred schedule and requirements. They provide affordable and irresistible travel and tour packages for your vacation needs. Some of the services provided by HTOA are holiday passports, fully paid cruises and resort marketing & unit generation.

For more information visit http://www.htoaarda.com

[lisa lofty]

I have been asked to do a review of a site called VIP Travel 4 Less. VIP Travel 4 Less’s purpose is to create vacation packages that deliver results. Whether a client is a Fortune 500 company or a start-up business that is looking for ways to increase traffic, VIP Travel can tailor any of its packages to fit the client’s needs and make sure it does the job. Used as a way to drive results from customers or employees, the company can create any type of vacation package that will drive action. The site is located at http://www.viptravel4less.com
The products that are available are state of the art travel premiums. Their premiums have been utilized as corporate incentives as well as client generation and closing tools. Depending on your needs, they can build you a package from various vendors including A Suite Week, A Holiday Adventure, A MidWeek Holiday, A Holiday, Sweeter Dreams, Holiday Air, Holiday Air II, Royal Caribbean Holiday, Carnival Plus, Visit Beautiful Florida, Holiday Passports, and Land Sea and Air.
The company’s goal is to provide a product that has your needs in mind, one that can be offered as an alternative to purchasing a Vacation Ownership unit and packaged with a trial week at your resort or as a stand alone offer. They have spent a great deal of time with research and development of this product and feel this is a “must have” product for all developers.
There are a number of ways that VIP Travel 4 Less can help you realize your sales and incentive goals. Have a look at their site to find out about their services
For more information visit http://www.viptravel4less.com