1. EXPLORE YOUR ENVIRONMENT
The best way to get motivated to protect the air, water, and earth around you is to go out and enjoy it. Check out one of the areas protected by the New Jersey chapter of the Nature Conservancy, such as Blair Creek Preserve or the Cape May Migratory Bird Refuge (nature.org/newjersey).
2. GREEN YOUR THREADS
At Green Earth Blue Sky in Moorestown (113 W Main St; 856-866-7616), refresh your wardrobe with products that are made from organic or recycled materials. Owner Kerry Meyer calls it making “purposeful purchases.”
3. EAT WHAT YOU BUY
Eating local and organic foods is important, so be proud of those cage-free eggs or Jersey tomatoes. But all the good vibes go away if that food ends up in the trash. The average household throws away 470 pounds of food each year—cutting that waste in half could reduce soil depletion, agricultural chemical use, and landfill use by 25 percent.
4. GET A HYBRID
Bike, that is. And use it.
5. PAMPER YOURSELF WITHOUT PAINING THE PLANET
Montclair-based Ecco Bella sells natural cosmetics, spa items, and perfumes that aren’t tested on animals (eccobella.com).
6. PRACTICE GREENER GIVING
There’s no need to buy wrapping paper, which frequently contains no recycled paper and is coated with chemicals, when you have newspaper comics, wall-calendar pages, or paper bags you can use as creative gift wrap.
7. SLEEP SOUNDLY
Rather than cuddling up in conventional cotton, one of the most pesticide-heavy crops around, explore options, such as organic bamboo bedding made by Yumi and Laurie, a company launched by Ridgewood’s Laurie Suzuki (yumiandlaurie.com).
8. CLEAR THE AIR
Peace lilies and spider plants are two of the dozens of houseplants that pull volatile organic compounds, common in paints, cleaners, and furnishings, out of the air you breathe. They look nice, too.
9. STAY IN SEASON
Every season has its bounty, even in New Jersey. Kale, for example, peaks in the dead of winter, so you can load up on nutrients and eat produce with fewer carbon emissions in its wake.
10. SNEEZE SUSTAINABLY
If you’re planning to blow your nose or wipe food with them anyway, is there any need for your paper products to be made from virgin fiber? If every household in the country replaced just one package of unrecycled napkins with a recycled pack, for example, we would save an estimated 1 million trees.
11. PLAN DRIVE-FREE ACTIVITIES
Rather than hitting the highway, hop the nearest NJ Transit train to Millburn to catch a show at the Paper Mill Playhouse; Newark for a concert at NJPAC; Cherry Hill to eat at Onasis; or Point Pleasant for a trip to the Shore.
12. RELAX
Though environmental problems are serious business, don’t let yourself get too stressed. Odds are, if you go through life with the health of the planet in mind, you’re on the right track. And usually, making eco-minded decisions makes your own world a little brighter, too.