How to Make One Green Change Every Day For a Year

Rebecca Brayton: Author Vanessa Farquharson made one green change in her life everyday for a year. Hi! I’m Rebecca Brayton and welcome to watchmojo.com and today we’re speaking with the author of “Sleeping Naked is Green.” Rebecca Brayton: What made you undertake this eco-challenge? Vanessa Farquharson: I’m a journalist at the national post and then those things I was sort of reading a lot, I’m sure like everyone about global warming, climate change and I just started to feel a little guilty and feel that my actions aren’t quite in line with my values. So I just wanted to do something and my first instinct was to quit and go like work for a world wildlife fund or something but I’m totally unqualified to do that. I decided to just use my writing in some way which is how the blog came about. I thought I’d just do this one change a day, challenge and the blog was just a way to hold me accountable and have people kind of watching over me. Judging me a little bit and yeah I got sort of deep down and I hope that I would inspire other people as well to maybe do something similar. Rebecca Brayton: And what would you say is the most difficult change that you made? Vanessa Farquharson: There are so many different food restrictions that you can make when you’re trying to be more environmentally friendly and there are number of ones that I did including sort of unplugging the fridge of course. By the end, I was trying to just eat really, really locally. It was reeling out all like citrus, no pineapple, no banana, no guacamole it couldn’t be avocados. No seafood either. Depending on where you are. If you’re in California, it’s a lot easier to do that but that was really, really difficult. Rebecca Brayton: Now, over the course of the year, did you save money or did you spend more than you would have initially? Vanessa Farquharson: Well, for one thing, I sold my car which made it a lot easier and my budget just lose like way more manageable without dozens of car-related expenses every month. But on top of that, buying strategically, you know like I refill my containers in a bulk section, which automatically saves money. Buying a vegetable plant based diet as opposed to meat and dairy, heavy diet is also going to be less costly and the packaging as well. Like if you buy a bunch of carrots rather than a packaged baby carrots then that’s also cheaper. Rebecca Brayton: Have you kept up with all the changes that you made? Vanessa Farquharson: Oh, I dropped more than a few. I don’t use handkerchiefs for one. That was horrible, so yeah, I used toilet paper as well now. I’m keeping up maybe 70 to 75% of the changes and I’m doing them because I want to not just because I know that I should. Rebecca Brayton: One challenge that you undertook was unplugging your fridge, how does that even work? Vanessa Farquharson: It’s not so impossible. You know, my grandmother didn’t have a fridge for a while. A lot of places in the world still don’t have them. There’s ways to keep food fresh without refrigeration. I put my vegetables in glasses of cold water, which actually make kind of nice centerpieces like a centerpiece of broccoli is kind of nice. And there’s a butter bell for my butter which keeps it like perfect spreading consistency and fresh cheesecloth, breadboxes, so on and so forth. Beer in the back of the toilet tank, take lot of waste. Rebecca Brayton: Thank you very much. Vanessa Farquharson: Thank you.