Keeping it green in 2013

In 2012, we set ourselves the 12 months of greening challenge. We had decided to work at being more eco conscious, reducing our carbon footprint, being more green, becoming raving hippies, being better citizens of planet earth, or browning up the place as my friend Charlotte puts it. However you want to put it, our goal was to set ourselves a little challenge each month and gradually make ourselves and our children more aware of our impact, and in doing so, reduce said impact. We did the challenges, and I blogged about most if them, and we are all feeling much better about ourselves. But it doesn't end with the year. In 2013, we're keeping it green (catchy huh?).

So what's the plan? First of all, we're going to revisit many of last years challenges. A meat free month won't hurt us again, a month of not buying anything won't either. Some of our challenges, like rubbish free lunches, have been such a roaring success that we have never taken a rubbish-y lunch since, so no need to revisit that one! But others have slipped a little and need reminders, such as generally buying less crap, and reducing the amount of waste we produce. In addition, we're going to try some other challenges as we make our way towards self sufficiency (for the record, we don't plan to ever be self sufficient, but figure we'll just keep edging closer and be proud of every little effort we make).

So rather than one big challenge each month, we'll have a few goals, which we'll post on the kitchen notice board, and here on the blog. Some of the challenges will be personal challenges that apply only to our family and home, but if any of them grab you as appropriate to you home, I'd love your company on our journey!

The goals for January so far are:

• Reduce washing to 3-4 loads per week (at the moment it is about 6 or more! The boys in particular are culprits of tossing un-dirty items in the laundry for washing)
• Make bread products without the bread maker machine (to reduce the amount of power used and maybe, eventually, allow me to get rid of another appliance)
• Declutter the house (all encompassing challenge this one - get rid of some stuff and don't get more!)
• Less wasteful breakfasts (we're fond of cereals here, but I'm tired of the 'bag in a box' rubbish that comes with them, so we're trialling new breakfast options that are healthy, filling and not too hard that come with less rubbish)

a loaf made without the breadmaker - happy with that!

That's enough for one month I think! Let me know if you join in a challenge or have any tips for us, and I'll let you know how we went when the month is done.