Change The World Wednesday

Welcome! If you're new to our challenges, please click HERE for the rules and a few tips & ideas.

I loved last week's challenge ... collecting our garbage for a week was a great way to measure our progress. Now that we're aware of how much we toss ... maybe we can find ways to reduce it.

Let's see how our Honor Society did:

EcoGrrl is way ahead of most with reducing garbage ... in her area trash is picked up once a month.

Brian's local landfill takes garbage for free on the last Thursday of the month. So he and his family try to reduce their trash.

Gigi joined our challenge and, in her article, she talked about last week's challenge to twist off light bulbs.

John at Cell Phone Recycling dropped by and offered his support to educating our youth to the impact our actions have on the earth.

Ange came by and talked about all kinds of ways to reduce ... not just trash but food and electricity, as well. She also wrote a very positive article called To Change One's Life ...

Green Colored Glasses, from Through Green Colored Glasses, stopped in and reminded us that little steps add up.

Kelli dropped in. Her family has reduced their trash to fill only 1/2 of a bag a week. Way to go, Kelli!

Argentum Vulgaris shared a fun "tangent" with us in his Change The World Wednesday post. AV always brings joy and laughter to our lives.

Le-Chat has cut her trash down ... in fact, she sees most garbage as usable material. Take a look at her creative use of "trash" in an article entitled "Free Yarn".

Mrs. Green accepted the challenge but she's way ahead of the game. She and her family decided not to use curbside pickup in 2009 and have yet to fill an entire trash bin. Wow! She points out, in her Change The World Wednesday post that paying attention to purchases is the place to start.

Elizabeth Barrette stopped in and in her post called "So Much Garbage" she asks us to consider all the aspects of garbage, including what happens to it. She offers us a calculator so that we can determine if we're walking gently on the earth or tromping around in clown shoes.

Rewinn took a hard look at his garbage and the very clever result is Growing Mr. Scrubby.

Ann, from My Thoughts and Photos, came by ... her post included some wonderful photos of Paradise Ducks.

As always, our Honor Society adds so much to our challenges.

Are you ready for more? I know that you are! Here we go:

Since this is such a busy time of year for many of us, I've decided to temporarily discontinue our weekly challenges ... actually, I'm going to take a break from regular blogging as well. Instead, today starts a much longer challenge ... it begins today and will run until the first Wednesday in January, when we'll pick things back up. Are you intrigued?

In the next week, take a look at your energy use. You can do this by looking at your last bill or going to your provider's website and looking at your usage history. Make a note of how many kilowatt-hours (kWh) you used in the last billing cycle. Then, between now and January 6th, put all of our energy saving ideas into play and reduce that number. In January, our first challenge will be about how much we were able to save and how we did it.

There is no second level to this challenge because, even for those who have reduced their usage as far as they believe they can go, I think we can search hard and save just a bit more. It's worth a try, right?

Okay ... that's it for this time ... I've Stumbled and Tweeted your articles about last week's challenge. And I'd like to invite you all to come back on November 27th for the unveiling of our Winter Shopping Extravaganza ... a directory of handmade shops.

WE'RE CHANGING THE WORLD ... ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME!