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What if a whole lot of people did the same "green" activity during the same time period? Would we have a positive impact on the environment? I believe we would! That's the simple concept behind Change The World Wednesdays (CTWW). Each week a new challenge will be posted, here on Reduce Footprints ... something which is easy to do and when done "en masse" will have a positive effect on the earth. It's the idea that when a lot of little actions are joined together ... the impact can be huge. We hope to take a huge step towards saving the earth.
Navigate to areas of interest using these hot keys:
RULES
We call them "rules" but actually, there are no rules ... only suggestions to make this activity successful:
- Commit to the activity by leaving a comment agreeing to participate in the challenge.
- Pass the word ... talk about it, email your friends and family, and/or blog about it.
- "Up The Ante" ... If you are already meeting and exceeding the current challenge, challenge the rest of us to do better ... in other words, up the ante. For example, when we did our short shower challenge, asking everyone to spend no more than 10 minutes in the shower, readers came back saying they did better by taking only 5 minute showers ... and challenged us to do better. When we asked that everyone use no more than 6 sheets of toilet paper per trip, a reader came back saying she only uses 5. So that's the idea. Just leave a comment with the new challenge (be sure to use the words "up the ante") or drop me a line HERE and put the words Up The Ante in the subject line. As soon as I get it, I will update the challenge ... so be sure to check the post throughout the week to see if the challenges have been improved. Doesn't that sound like fun?
THE CURRENT CHALLENGE
Plastic
PREVIOUS CHALLENGES (in chronological order)
Leave Your Shoes at the Door
$1.50 For Food per Day per Person
Toilet Paper
Paper Towels
Spring Cleaning
CDs, DVDs, Blu Rays (Oh My)
Water Footprint
Walking With A Purpose
Planning for Next Winter
Reduce Trash
Group Review - Body Soap
Six Ingredients
Use It Up (Half term challenge)
Political Pressure - Fracking
Digitize Your Correspondence
Start an Action Journal
Let's Get Organized
A Question
Reduce
Local Shopping
Eco-Friendly Holidays & Giving
Zero Impact
Mindful Eating
Reader's Choice
SWOT
Food Packaging
(Inter)National Zero Waste Week
Eating Locally in Winter
Chemical-Free Skin
Green Our Children
Creatively Conserve Water
Toxins in your yard
Suggest a Challenge
Waste Audit
Plastic Wrap
Paper Towels & Disposable Utensils
Track Miles Not Driven
Plastic Produce Bags
Use It Up
Transition Culture
Waste-Free Lunches
Permaculture - Gardening
Permaculture - Observing
Eco-Friendly Grilling
Plant a Vegetable
Walk & pick up trash
Read a book
Daily Challenges 2012
Recycling
Eco-Friendly Exercise
Protect Your Heart, Protect The Earth
Donate Your Stuff
Road Blocks and Solutions
Reduce Electricity - Part 2
Zero Food Waste
Green Decorations/Decor
Get Ready For Winter
Reduce Electricity and Vegan For A Day
Green Gifts
Environmental Impact of Pets
Light Bulbs
Trick or Treat
Bicycle/Walk instead of Drive
Reduce Water Waste
Refrigerator Maintenance
Zero Waste Week - Part 2
Zero Waste Week - Part 1
Clean & Test The Furnace For Fall
Take A Walk and Pick Up Litter
Reduce Energy Use
Clean Out The Pantry
No Paper Towels
Short Showers
Eliminate Plastic
Our Proudest Green Achievement - Continued
Our Proudest Green Achievement
Become an activist
Have your coffee at home
Reduce Paper
Gratitude
Recycling-Let's Help a Green Friend
Don't wash clean clothes
Grow Food
Stop Smoking
Volunteer
Daily Challenges
Daily Challenges - Week Six
Daily Challenges - Week Five
Daily Challenges - Week Four
Daily Challenges - Week Three
Daily Challenges - Week Two
Daily Challenges - Week One
Eliminate Garbage Disposal Use & Save Water
Slow Down
Disposable to Reusable
Promote Green
Double Challenge - #28ate and Giving Back
Eco-Friendly Cleanser 2
Energy-Efficient Cooking
Laundry
Local Foods
How To Compost
Gift From The Closet
Thanksgiving
Micro-Gardending
Reuse and Reduce
Reuse and Recycle
Help a Friend Recycle
Narrow the Margins
Blog Action Day
Plastic Bags
Toothpaste
Take A Bow
Budget
Plastic Produce Bags
Single-Serving Foods
Single-Use Wipes/Cloths
Eliminate Frozen Dinners
Remove Antibacterial Products
Fewer Showers
Spring Planting
Carbon Calculator
Whole Foods
Earth Hour
Returnable/Reusable Containers
Trickling Water
Antiquing
Paperless Bills
Swap Books, Magazines, etc.
Catalogs
E-Greetings
Stove-, Oven- and Microwave-Free Day
Reusable Mugs & Glasses
Food Labels
Finishing Up The Month-Long Challenge
Reduce Energy Use (Month-Long Challenge)
Collect Trash
Twist Off Light Bulbs
Zero Food Waste
Fix/Maintain Your Car
Buy Recycled
Blog Action Day 2009
Walk and Clean Up Litter
Plastic Wrap and Foil
All About Kids
Paper Towels
Plant Something
Styrofoam
Put Your Computer To Sleep
Reduce the size of the trash bin by recycling and/or composting
Eco-friendly cleansers
Meatless meals
Make a craft using recycled/repurposed materials
Reuse by donating to a charity
No spending diet
Leave the car at home
CFLs and LEDs
Local foods
Plastic bags
Short showers
A FEW TIPS AND IDEAS
- Want an easy way to keep up with our challenges? Just add the CTWW banner to your blog by copying the following code & pasting it into your site:
- Have fun! These challenges are designed to teach us something and push us a little ... to challenge us to try something new. But, in the process, there's nothing saying we can't have a little fun. So embrace CTWW and have a great time!
- For an easy way to keep track of weekly challenges, copy the above banner to your blog and link to this page ... it will always have the latest information about Change The World Wednesday.
- Write a post about the current challenge, let us know you did by leaving a comment before 6:00 pm EST on Tuesday, and your article will get stumbled, tweeted, facebooked and (beginning 11/16/11) shared on Google +. Any comments and/or posts received after that time will be shared on social media pages the following week. Your articles are typically shared on social networks on Tuesday. Beginning now, I'll occasionally post them additional times before then ... so getting them in early may give one even more visibility.
- Get your blog/site some visibility. When you leave a comment, agreeing to participate in the challenge, you'll be added to the next week's "Honor Society". Your name and a link to your site will be posted, hopefully bringing you new readers.
- Copy each week's list of Honorees along with a link to Reduce Footprints and paste it into a post on your blog. If we all do this, our blog rankings will go up.
- Passing the word is easy ... if you are a Twitter member, tweet about CTWW using the hashtag #CTWW ... doing so with make you a member of the #CTWW Gang giving your twitter account a mention in the next challenge.
- Our bloggy friend Rewinn at REWinn Scrapbook has this great suggestion: If we add "Change the World Wednesdays" to our individual blog tag lists, we can facilitate looking at what we've already published and perhaps increase interest by casual visitors.
- Elizabeth Barrette (author of Gaiatribe) offers this: "What I have done that's worth an extra mention is to list all the new CTWW posts at the end of my original feature post about this project. That's hugely useful because it's the page that keeps getting the most StumbleUpon hits. So other folks might consider creating a CTWW "landing page" on their blogs."
WE'RE CHANGING THE WORLD ...
ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME
ONE CHALLENGE AT A TIME