Our Green New Year Resolutions
January 04, 2012 By: Amruta Kshemkalyani

Happy New Year 2012!
Every year we all make new year resolutions. Since years I am adding environmental awareness & achieving Green/Eco-friendly lifestyle in the list of my new year resolutions.

Last year I opted for raw vegan food as much as possible. I reduced my weight (!) & saved a lot of LPG for cooking & cooking oil than most of the Indian people ;). Apart from jokes, this year I have decided to walk more & more and also use public transport whenever possible. Using less water for a household is continued from last year. Saving electricity by not using AC in winter at home & office is ongoing. And using daylight and not switching on lights during the daytime (especially in the office) is also carried forward from last year, Thanks to my colleagues as they don’t object!

Last year very successfully I kept on avoid printing papers in office & whenever needed I printed on both sides. I tried my best to implement paper recycling in my previous office. I feel good when I see those filled paper recycling boxes whenever I visit my previous office. But now I need to recycle papers in my new office this year!

Getting rid of some unnecessary things (clothes/shoes/medicines etc) at home by giving them to charity is still pending from last year’s list of resolutions. And the same is a story with very heavy paper luggage at home. We need to scan most of the papers/notes & recycle them.

The new addition to my resolutions list is, try to save petrol when I am waiting at a signal or petrol pump! If switching off the engine is not possible then at least changing gear to neutral will save some petrol for sure. I will also organize my hard disc & throw unnecessary digital stuff to recycle bin, as I don’t want to buy a new hard disc. (which will save some of my carbon footprints!)

One more thing I will start this year, to buy vegetables & keep them in one plastic bag instead of using the sperate bag for each veggie & fruits.

But this year, Nandan, my husband is definitely being more creative at New year’s Green resolutions. What he did is, firstly he changed his mobile’s screen as a black screen. By doing this his mobile battery life increased & he doesn’t have to charge his mobile every now & then.

He also selected a power saver mode on his mobile. The overall effect of all his efforts is longer battery time. Though one might think how much electricity could be saved by doing these changes in your mobile and definitely this is micro energy saving. But we need to think what if my husband continues to follow his new year resolution till the end of this year or what if some more people join him to save their mobile battery charger. Then definitely considerable electricity could be saved!

The inference is if we can not stop using technologies (especially electronics), which are adding big amount of carbon footprint to date, then at least we can try using these technologies smartly. So that at least we can save some resources!

Guys all the very best to you to fulfill your new year resolution & my request is to add some Green resolutions to your list and let me know about them!