Simple Eco-Friendly Resolutions to Ring in the New Year

“Do more for the environment,” is the 11th most popular of all New Year’s resolutions for 2024, according to a Statista survey conducted in October 2023.

If you’re also hoping to live more sustainably and make this resolution stick, we suggest embracing simple environmentally friendly practices. As these easy practices become core in your life, you can move on to bigger commitments.

Live a more sustainable life in the new year with these six straightforward eco-friendly resolutions:

1. Find Eco-Friendly Alternatives for Household Cleaning and Personal Products

One of the easiest resolutions to make is to find eco-friendly alternatives for all of your household cleaning and personal hygiene products. Both kinds of products contain some of the most harmful toxins for human and planet health, like volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ammonia.

Every time you need to purchase laundry detergent, kitchen cleaner, face wash, shampoo and any other cleaning or personal care product in the new year, opt for eco-friendly options.

2. Compost Your Food Scraps and Leftovers

Instead of throwing your food scraps and leftovers in the garbage, try composting this year. The world wastes so much food every year and only a small percentage of it is composted. The rest ends up in landfills.

When you compost leaves and food scraps, the natural process turns these things into fertilizer you can then use to enrich soil and plants.

Purchase a closed compost bin to make your home more eco-friendly. Place the bin directly on a patch of soil. Then throw your egg shells, banana peels, coffee grounds and so forth in it and close the lid. The open bottom allows the nutrients to seep directly into the soil.

When you compost, you get rid of the need for chemical-based fertilizers too. So, your eco-friendliness goes beyond your original resolutions.

3. Start a Garden

Although gardening will take a bit of learning and consistent effort, it’s one of the best ways to eat more sustainably in the new year. The environmental benefits of starting a garden include:

Reduced waste
Better air quality
Nutrient restoration in soil
More organic food, plants and flowers are added
Greenhouse gases become valuable gases through photosynthesis

In addition to these environmental benefits, your health and well-being can improve with a garden.

For example, gardening is a great way to get physical activity every day and exposure to the sun for vitamin D. You can relieve stress and boost your mood when gardening. You also get a chance to eat better foods and deepen your connection with nature.

Start with a small garden in your backyard. Choose a few fruits, vegetables and plants you think would be good for your garden and easy to maintain. Plant them with care and commit to continually learning about how to manage your garden.

If you get good at gardening, you can take this resolution a step further and turn it into a side hustle, selling your goods at farmers’ markets. Produce, plants and food products you made with what came from your garden are perfect for farmers’ markets.

Map out the costs associated with selling at farmers’ markets, like booth rent and materials to design your booth. Then, you can look into when and where farmers’ markets are held in your area and choose your first date.

4. Shop Local

So much fuel is used to transport food and goods to stores. Not to mention people are constantly traveling to stores, miles away from their homes, to pick up what they need. This is part of the reason why the transportation industry is responsible for much of the air pollution negatively impacting human and planet health.

Choose to shop locally in the new year to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions and improve air quality. Also, when you shop locally, you’re supporting local, small vendors and helping them provide jobs to local people.

5. Ditch Single-Use Plastics

One of the most dangerous things for our environment is single-use plastics. These aren’t designed to be recycled, so they don’t break down all the way. They turn into microplastics that float around in the air and, when they’re consumed, they can cause respiratory or other health issues.

Ditch single-use plastics this year and rely on reusable items.

6. Use an Eco-Friendly Transportation Method AT least Once a Week

The greenhouse gas emissions from different modes of transportation are ruining our air, water and soil quality. They’re also perpetuating climate change.

Despite what most people think, using an eco-friendly transportation method as little as once a week can make a difference.

For instance, instead of driving to work every day, bike once a week in the new year. You’ll slowly reduce your carbon footprint and get great exercise simultaneously.

Keep in mind, there can be tension between bicyclists and drivers on the road, making it a somewhat risky mode of transportation. Driving speeds, unsafe passing practices, road rage and road hazards can make sharing the road with vehicles dangerous.

Stay safe by being aware of your surroundings while on the road. Wear bright colors so drivers can see you. Also, use hand signals and follow the cyclists’ rules of the road.

Aside from biking, walking, public transportation and carpooling are solid eco-friendly transportation options to consider.

Conclusion

Your wanting to be more eco-friendly in the new year is commendable. Our planet’s health is in jeopardy and we need more people like you willing to make changes in their lives to support a more sustainable future.

Don’t feel like you have to adopt complex habits or make huge changes in your day-to-day life to be more eco-friendly. Instead, keep it simple. Embrace the straightforward practices above to ensure your eco-friendly resolutions stick.