Easy Green Resolutions You Can Actually Keep

With the disappointing end to the recent Climate Summit, and the New Year right around the corner, now is a more motivating time than ever to make some simple green resolutions to help both your wallet, and Mother Earth.

While many resolutions were made to be broken, these are easy to keep.

If you need a little more motivation to keep your green resolutions just consider the evidence of climate change in the news on a daily basis. Are you stuck in a snow storm right now waiting to get home for Christmas? Harsher season = climate change. Did you see the piece of the ancient glacier that scientists thought would not start breaking up for years floating around the coast of New Zealand?

Climate change is already affecting our daily lives, but the little things do add up. Consider adding at least one of these simple resolutions to your list. We promise they're easy to stick to!

• Remember Your Bags: If you're one of those consumers still using plastic because you always forget your recyclables at home, get up from the computer right now and put those bags in your car. BAM! You've got a resolution you can stick to!

• Ask Yourself, Do I Need That? This Christmas you'll likely score a few coveted items you really wanted, but you'll also likely get some items you'd rather toss.  While America's love of conspicuous consumption does help keep the economy going, most of us purchase many, many thing we don't really need for both ourselves and for others. Manufacturing items, packaging them in plastic and shipping them to your local Super Fantastic Mart all take a toll on the environment. Maybe this year you can give Aunt Mabel the gift of a tree planted in her honor instead of another garden gnome?

• Clean Water is Cheap to Free: Bottled water companies do not want you to know one dirty little secret. Many of them fill their plastic bottles right from the faucet. Help cut down on the 50 billion plastic water bottles America consumed last year. Invest in a good reusable stainless steel water bottle, and BAM! your life just got greener.

• Stop the Catalog Clutter: Americans receive about 16 billion catalogs a year. Many of us simply toss them in the recycle bin, or worse, the trash. Take 5 minutes and visit CatalogChoice.org to stop your catalog clutter.

• Give up Hot Water (In Your Washing Machine): Most of the energy it takes to wash clothes in a washing machine comes from the energy needed to heat the water. Most clothes will come clean in cold water. Make the switch and save. BAM! Another super easy resolution to keep!

• Buy Recycled Toilet Paper: Per TheDailyGreen if every household in the United States bought one package of recycled toilet paper as opposed to virgin paper it would eliminate 60,6000 thousand pounds of chlorine pollution, preserve 356 million gallons of fresh water, and save nearly 1 million trees. Even better news, recycled toilet paper is usually cheaper.

• Lower the Temperature in Your Fridge: The center of the kitchen, a refrigerator also uses the most power. Lower the temperature to save energy and lower your electric bill.
  

• Unplug Your Phantoms: Televisions, computers, cell phones, DVD players are all often left plugged in when not being used. Unplug and save on that phantom ghost energy being consumed by no one except your resting gadgets.

For more great green resolutions, check out this list of fifteen things you can do to help the environment at The Daily Green.

Got any green resolutions of your own? Leave us a note in the comments below.  Don't forget to check out our list of weekly green deals and for awesome fashion deals, make sure to follow me on Twitter @CoupieSavings.