Green Challenge Update

In October 2010 I set out to create a series of challenges  to particpate in to help keep our environment healthy. No, I have not forgotten about the Green Challenge. But it has been months since I’ve posted a new one, mostly because I’ve been having trouble coming up with new ideas for challenges. Also, I didn’t get much feedback on any of them. One of the reasons I started it was to see how many people would do them along with me-but people it seemed like people stopped caring, then so did I.

However, some of  those challenges I wrote about I still try to adhere to, except one or two. Let’s review them.

Challenges I still follow

Drink local beer and wine

I’m still conscous of where my beer comes from and I can say starting this challenge allowed me to try beers I never would have in the past. And I found some of my favorites! Blue Point Blueberry, Southern Tier Raspberry Wheat, and our local brew pubs’ Brown’s Rasperberry Ale and Pump Station’s Apple Ale, to name a few.

The wine aspect is the hardest since its really hard to find a NY wine on the menu at restaurants around here. When I see one, I go for it. If they don’t have it, I try to see if there is a local beer and if not, if I must have a drink, I would order a mixed drink instead.

Eat a Vegan Meal Once A Week

This seemed the most easy to follow since my breakfast every day is vegan and usually I will create a dinner that is as well. Easy to follow.

Reduce Plastic Waste

This one is also pretty standard. I don’t buy bottled water or bottled beverages and I try to limit my plastic usage, and when I do use it, I recycle it! Thankfully my city has single stream recycling so I can just throw them all in one bag to recycle!

Difficult challenges that I hate forgot about

Reduce water usage by taking miliary showers

This challenge lasted a week, I believe. I started it in the middle of winter which was a bad idea, and I just love warm showers too much, especially with a cold house. My bad. Chris still takes them though, so he gets bonus points.

No TV for one week per month

You’d think this one would be easy to follow. I didn’t make it a whole week consecutively, but I think the days I don’t watch TV throughout the month definitely add up to a week, so that counts, right?

Next month (October) will mark one year since I began the Green Challenge. So technically I can go back to drinking wine from Africa and beer from California. Will I want to? Not really. I think that was my favorite one and I will probably stick to it. 🙂