Out With the Old..

As the holiday season and the year 2011 comes to an end and new year is beginning I (along with most people) have made some new years resolutions. Now yes, I have made the "usual" resolutions - exercise more, eat healthier, watch less TV, etc. but this year I am adding a few more to the list and challenging myself to take my goal of living a sustainable zero waste life to the next level.

The Resolutions

1. If I truly feel that I need to buy something I will look for a used option before buying new. This goes for clothes, gifts and household goods (definitely not food!).

2. If I do buy something new, I will make a huge effort to buy local and buy American. 

3. At the grocery store, whenever possible I will buy in bulk and look for other products that come in packaging that can either be recycled or reused.

4. I will only buy a to-go drink if I have a reusable mug with me.

5. I will refuse plastic bags at the store. If I forget my reusable bag I will carry whatever I've bought.

The Challenge

I will admit up front that this challenge is not an original idea. Last week my sister sent me an email of a blog posting by a friend of hers. At the beginning of 2011, this friend (who had recently moved) decided that she had too much stuff and really wondered if every item in her home had a purpose, or was it just meaningless clutter. So, decided that she would challenge herself to find one item every day to get rid of, 365 items in total.

Here are a few of the rules she gave herself:
1) If something got replaced, it didn’t count.

2) Every item counted as one item. No extra points for big stuff or expensive stuff: whether it was a pair of earrings or a moped, it counted as one.

3) To keep my honest, I’d take a picture of each item. At the end of the year, I should have 365 pictures.

Although I have "purged" a lot of clutter from my home in last year, I know there is still more I can get rid of.  Starting today I am taking on the challenge of getting rid of 365 items during 2012. I am planning to follow the same rules listed above. I will take pictures of all the items before they leave the house so I can keep track of what I decided to get rid of. At the end of the year I will be able to look back and reflect on what I got rid of and what the experience was like.

So, here is to 2012, the year of "out with the old and in with, well, nothing".

Happy New Year!