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Resolve to be better - New Year's Resolutions for 2020

Resolve to be better - New Year's Resolutions for 2020

We’re lapping up this New Zealand summer; coastline drives, river swims, forest hikes and beach days. We don’t get a fresh start with our planet, and we want to keep New Zealand beautiful. We’re keen to step up and make positive changes for our planet in 2020 –are you with us?!

 

Small things are a great place to start - it doesn’t have to be drastic. After all, sustainability is a journey. To get you started, here are our picks of things you can do to make a difference this year:

  

1. Take out the milk in your coffee.

Try short blacks this year. Coffee without milk reduces your carbon footprint by 90%

 

2. Meat-free Mondays.

If you’re not up with the kids and already a “flexitarian”, try “Meat-free Monday”. One of the leading causes of global warming is animal agriculture. Taking out meat once a week (beef in particular) is a highly impactful way to reduce your carbon footprint and associated waste.

 

3. Get smart timers for your home.

Get smart timers on your lights, water sprinkler and your housemates showering times! Check out this smart plug as an example. 

 

4. Start a home compost bin.

We’re always talking about compost. Still, we cannot emphasise enough the impact you will have simply by keeping your food scraps out of a landfill and turning them into compost. If you’d like to learn more about why compost is useful, check out our recent Q&A with composting experts, We Compost. Compost bins are easy to set up in your home; check out Bunnings or Mitre10 for options! Worm farms are also great for munching food waste and fun for families to manage at home.

 

5. Implement compost collection at your workplace.

Where do your food scraps go at work? Check out your office waste systems – does everything go to landfill? If you see room for improvement, speak to your facilities manager about implementing better waste systems. We recommend separate rubbish bins to collect different waste streams (organics, landfill and recyclable). But the important one is an organic waste bin to collect food scraps. Book a business come to collect organic waste every week – there are lots of collection services available, and some are listed on our website here.

 

The bottom line is that little things add up, and collectively we make a big impact. Resolve to be better for our planet this year, and we’ll really have something to celebrate next New Years!