The Martlet

It’s that time of year again. Where friends and family, or random strangers in the grocery store, ask: “What’s your New Year’s resolution?”

Many of our resolutions are based on getting healthier: quitting smoking and losing weight top the list. It’s easy to make resolutions that focus on cutting back, after a season based on excessive consumption. But these resolutions are not so easy to keep once stress creeps back into our lives.

It’s a great idea to make changes to your lifestyle in order to improve your health. But what about taking time to make the planet healthier? Your New Years resolution could save the world. And it’s simple. You could start with something as easy as not washing your jeans. Ever.

The Globe and Mail recently reported on a Melbourne University student’s research paper in which the student asked volunteers to not wash their jeans for three months, while wearing them at least five days a week. The results? At the end of the three months, the jeans didn’t smell and didn’t look all that dirty (besides the odd stain) and half of the people in the study chose to continue not washing their jeans.

The masters student ended up with an unanticipated conclusion: to help the environment, don’t wash your jeans, and for that matter your clothes, so often; you don’t need to. Air them out, spot clean stains, but less laundry means less energy and water being wasted.

Another good resolution is to eat less meat. It’s never been easier to cut back on meat, or go vegetarian, than it is now. Vegetarians tend to have lower cholesterol, lower body mass index and a lower incidence of heart disease. And there are many tasty recipes and resources out there to help those that want to cut back, but not sacrifice their protein intake. A vegetarian diet, whether part-time or full-time, is not only beneficial to the body but also good for the environment. Beef production alone accounts for a large portion of the greenhouse gases humans release into the atmosphere. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that livestock are responsible for more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry. It’s also incredibly inefficient compared to growing vegetables and grains for human consumption.

Another food-related, environmentally-minded resolution is to stop wasting food. Food in the landfill is a huge source of greenhouse gases. According to the FAO, close to half the food produced in the world is discarded in processing, transportation, grocery stores and kitchens. So we can’t afford to have food go bad in our cupboards and fridges. Properly storing food and buying (or better yet, growing) only the amount we are going to eat is a great resolution to make and stick to.

There are many ethical changes that we can make to our lifestyles that will benefit ourselves and those around us. The New Year is a great excuse to start something that might just save the world.