I resolve to…

The Daily Green is highlighting 15 New Year’s resolutions that can help you conserve energy, protect the environment and create less waste. Here’s a selected look at actions you can take to put a green glow on 2009.

If you overindulged during the holiday break, get back on track by promising to recycle and choose recycled goods, like the Nahui Ollin Overturned-Tootsie Pop Candy Wrapper Tote or the recycled Wine Bottle Coat Rack from the Green Glass Company.

On the home front, resolve to have a greener kitchen, bathroom and laundry. Save energy in your kitchen by running your dishwasher only when it’s full and use the air-dry setting instead of heat-dry. Tune up your fridge to ensure peak efficiency by cleaning the condenser coil and when you grocery shop, use reusable bags.

Put a fresh green spin on laundry Mondays by resolving to line-dry your clothes or if you need to use the dryer, make sure the lint filter is clean (a new hobby!), the load is full, the timer is working and wet clothes are not added in the middle of a cycle. Save additional energy by washing clothes in cold water, or if really soiled wash them in warm instead of hot water.

In the bathroom resolve to fix that leak in your toilet and buy recycled paper products. A switch to facial tissue and toilet paper made with recycled content (recycled fiber and post-consumer recycled content) could have a big impact on the environment. The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that if every household replaced one box of virgin fiber facial tissue with 100% recycled tissue and one roll of virgin fiber toilet paper with 100% recycled TP, we could save 586,900 trees. 

That’s got to be getting close to saving a forest.

Are you celebrating the New Year with any energy savings resolutions?