Day 3 No Impact Project

Well, it’s mid-week, ‘Food’ Day of the No Impact Challenge and so far it has been a somewhat normal week for us, although we (I should say ‘I’) are monitoring our habits even more closely. We’re generally pretty good about trash (recycling and composting make our volume of garbage much lower). This week, one difference is that we have quite a lot of tissues due to some runny noses and I don’t feel ready to switch to hankies that need to be washed… yet!
Our recycling bin was less than half full this week and we try to minimize our purchases of overly packaged foods.
The food issue is a difficult one and I challenged myself to buy foods produced in the province of Quebec rather than the 250 km radius which is tough. Quebec potatoes, onions and carrots are easy to find but other ‘staple’ fruit and veggies aren’t. I would also really miss my kalamata olives, extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar if I was to do this for a whole year!
Transportation Day fell on a bad day for me as I had a doctor’s appointment downtown which I had made months ago so not good! Living in the village, I do however walk a lot and get lots done locally. It’s fun and good exercise too. My husband takes the train to work as often as he can but having only 2 trains daily really limits its practicality and it seems that the option of driving to Vaudreuil often ends up turning into driving right downtown once he’s on the road.
On the energy level, we are very conscious of not having the whole house lit up and the kids are frequently reminded to shut the lights when they leave a room (start good habits young!) We also added some insulation to our house this year so that should make a difference in our heating consumption.
I have reduced the amount of water I use for washing dishes in the sink (1/3 full rather than ½) and that was a pretty easy adjustment. A good habit I started a while back is to put all water that comes back in my kids’ reusable drinking water bottles from their lunchbox right into my watering jug or even straight into a thirsty plant.
In the end, being conscious of our daily habits and trying to find ways to minimize our footprint is a huge step in helping the environment and the more you do it the better you feel! All these actions don’t go unnoticed and can help others make these changes and then the impact of our lessened impact is even greater. So keep it up, it’s our future!

Chantal