087- A Simple Sustainable Challenge for the Holiday Season

Lighten your holiday season with tiny sustainable swaps that reduce waste, simplify your routines, and help you create a calmer, more intentional home,  without giving up convenience.

This week we’re talking about that moment when the house smells like gingerbread, the candles are glowing…and the trash is overflowing with plastic packaging and scrunched-up wrapping paper. If you’ve ever wondered how “cozy season” turned into “waste season,” this episode will help turn that around. We’re kicking off the December Live Light Challenge, 31 tiny, sustainable swaps to help you honor your values without giving up the convenience you actually need.

You’ll learn simple ways to lighten your footprint through the choices you’re already making: what you eat, what you buy, what you toss, and how you use energy and water at home. This is sustainability the Choosy Organizer way: calm, flexible, realistic, and good enough! By the end, you’ll know how to pick the small habits that fit your life (not a homesteader fantasy) and how tiny upstream choices really do make December feel lighter.

You'll learn:

✨ Why tiny food shifts make a surprisingly big dent in your environmental impact

✨ How to shop intentionally in a season designed for impulse buys

✨ What “wishcycling” actually does

✨ The simplest energy + water tweaks that save resources without extra effort

✨ A gentler way to practice sustainability even when you’re busy and tired

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Sign up for the December Live Light Challenge, 31 days of sustainable swaps to fit your busy life
• Episode 81: How to Save Hours, and Save Money, on Meal Prep — The Choosy Organizer Way

Here’s to a lighter, calmer December inside your home and out. Follow the podcast so you don’t miss weekly organizing tips for Beautiful Living.

#DeclutteringTips #BeautifulLiving #SustainableLiving #IntentionalLiving #EcoFriendlyHabits

Get on the wait list for my FREE class: 3 Steps to Painlessly Declutter your Kitchen in just a Weekend! This is how you get no-cry mornings and calm evenings in your kitchen. And I'll show you how you can do it in just a weekend without overwhelm and without getting stuck. And, of course, you'll learn how to make sure the clutter doesn't come back with minimal effort. Go to https://fireflybridge.com/update and get on the wait list!

Connect with me:

You can find me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fireflybridgeorganizing
Here's my website: https://fireflybridge.com

Call or text me: 305-563-2292

Email me: zeenat@fireflybridge.com

Transcript

You know that moment when you’ve got your holiday candles burning, and the twinkle lights are on, cookies are baking in the oven, and then you take out the trash and it’s stuffed with plastic packaging, Amazon bags, takeout containers, and a whole lot of scrunched up Christmas wrapping paper?
Have you noticed how cozy season and waste season seem to arrive at the same time?
We’re doing more online shopping, more gift wrapping, more driving, more cooking. And if you’re like a lot of people, there’s this little voice in the back of your mind going:
“I care about the planet. But I also really like my two-day shipping and my 15-minute dinners. So, now what?”
Well today we’re talking about that “now what.”
This December, I’m inviting you into a really simple, really doable Live Light Challenge. It’s 31 tiny sustainable swaps for every day of the month. 
It’s not a guilt trip, and not a “throw everything away and move to an off-grid cabin.”
These are easy, low-friction habits that don’t wreck the convenience of your modern life, but they do line up with your values of sustainability, stewardship, and Beautiful Living.
In this episode, I’m not going to list all 31 ideas. I’ll send those out in little weekly emails to you if you want them.
Instead, I’m going to walk you through the big themes behind the challenge:
the food you eat, the way you shop, what happens to your trash, your energy and water at home, and how you move around in the world.
By the end, you’ll know why these tiny swaps matter, how to pick the ones that fit your life, and how to practice sustainability in a very Choosy Organizer way, meaning simple, calm, and good enough, not perfect.
Ready to live just a little lighter this December? Let’s get into it.

Welcome to Organizing for Beautiful Living with me, Zee Siman, The Choosy Organizer.
This podcast is for women who are done organizing everything and ready to be choosy — about what matters, what’s enough, and what can wait.
Because Beautiful Living starts with a little less stress and a lot more intention.
Ready to get beautifully organized? Let’s make it happen.

The whole idea for this episode was sparked by a Thanksgiving dinner conversation, when we were talking about what was on each niece and nephew’s wishlist for Christmas, and we started talking about how much packaging we throw out with the toys, right?
And I remembered how one year after Christmas, I was wheeling out our recycling bin to the curb and I remember worrying that the rain was going to soak all the cardboard and wrapping paper and stuff because the lid couldn’t close all the way, it was so stuffed.
There were shipping boxes, those air pillows that we use for packaging in there, plastic clamshells from berries and clear salad tubs.
And I had this really smug moment where I thought:
“Well, at least it’s all going into recycling, right? Gold star for me.”
Then I started reading more about what actually gets recycled in most cities these days, what happens to online returns, how much food we toss in December, and wow. That gold star just evaporated.
We’re kind of sold this story that as long as we toss things in the blue bin and maybe buy a reusable tote bag, we’re basically environmental superheroes. Now those things are all good.
But what’s interesting is this:
Most of the impact, the stuff that really moves the needle, happens before the blue bin.
It’s in what we buy, what we don’t buy, what we eat, and how much we waste.
That’s where the December Live Light Challenge works. It’s in the tiny upstream choices that we make.
And because I know you, you’re busy, you’re already managing 47 things, this challenge had to meet some criteria:
It had to be Tiny steps — we’re talking 5-minute decisions, not weekend-long projects.
There had to be no war on convenience — you still get your dishwasher, your car, and your online shopping.
And it had to be aligned with your values — sustainability that feels like an expression of who you are, not a punishment. OK?
So let’s walk through the six big buckets that the 31 days are built around, and I’ll show you how to make this feel calm, not really challenging. All right?

1. The first bucket are our Food Choices & Sourcing. We want to Live Light, not be hung up on food options or guilt about what we’re eating or not eating.
Food is one of the biggest levers we have for sustainable living and one of the trickiest, because it’s emotional, right? Food is at the center of culture, of comfort, our time, and our kids’ preferences.
You don’t have to become vegan to make a meaningful difference. Research shows even one meat-free day a week can lower greenhouse gas emissions and land use.
And preventing food waste? Well, that’s one of the most effective ways to reduce your footprint, according to the EPA.
Episode 81 - How to Save Hours, and Save Money, on Meal Prep — The Choosy Organizer Way, it’s got some tips in there that can help you in this area of preventing food waste. I’ll link it in the show notes for you.
2. The second big bucket is our Consumption Patterns, or shopping. We need to be Choosy before stuff hits our cart.

Be intentional about your purchases. An easy habit to adopt is to wait one full day, or 5 days or 7 days before making that purchase of something you think you need to buy. What happens in that wait period is that you might find something that better suits your needs, or you might find you don't need the item after all, or the moment has passed, or you might come across something in your house already that you could use instead. 
Also, it might surprise you to know that so much of what we return to Amazon and other online retailers are actually never put back on "the shelf" to be resold in the same way. A big, big portion of returns are sold in bulk to liquidators. 
You might have seen some of these pallet unboxing videos online, on YouTube, where people buy full pallets of returned stuff at a huge discount in the hopes of finding some gems in there to resell and make a profit. But largely it's not profitable, and whatever doesn't sell is really often sent overseas or to landfills. 
So, I mean, here’s the thing. We think we're doing the right thing by buying 2 sizes of a shirt or a dress to try on, and then quickly returning the size that didn't fit, thinking it’s going to get sold to someone else who needs it. 
Only to find out that it's probably never making it back to the shelf? That seems to be especially true of the fast fashion stuff we find on Amazon and places like that. I will always recommend that you buy from a reputable manufacturer if you're buying online. 
If I could humbly recommend something, it would be to buy only from reputable online stores, and use your measurements. Measure your kids, measure yourself to find the best fit possible because sizes are so inconsistent from manufacturer to manufacturer, and within the same manufacturer. 
That way, you're less likely to have to return something. Read the reviews, understand what you're getting. 
Now, will you be spending more than if you're buying from an unknown brand, especially those brands that are nonsense words on Amazon? Well, initially, it may feel like you are. But over time, hopefully you're buying better quality that will last longer, fit you better, be made of better materials, and won't fall apart after 2 washes. 
So you'll be buying less, and you'll use it for longer. That's not only saving you money, but it's also using fewer resources to manufacture and ship new stuff to you and then you shipping back your unwanted returns, right? 
So if your values are here with sustainability, it's probably going to be worth your effort to do a little research to find the manufacturers you can go to and who you love, with confidence. Is there a perfect manufacturer? I'm going to say No. 
Almost every week I hear about some brand that I thought was great, well they’re accused of greenwashing, or lowering their quality, but you know what? We're doing our best. So go with your gut, and if at some point you no longer align with that brand, then say goodbye and find another one.

3. The third bucket is Waste & Recycling
You can call this Wishcycling vs. Reality.
Most cities accept only a limited set of recyclables. Tossing the wrong things into the blue bin hoping it can be recycled, well that’s wishcycling, well it can contaminate entire loads. 
So take a few minutes to look up your town's waste management site to see exactly what is acceptable in curbside recycling. You might be surprised that it's less than you think. 
Clamshell containers that salad mixes come in or berries come in are largely not recycled in my area, for example. Maybe you're lucky and it is in your area. Napkins and paper towels are not recyclable. 
But in general we're told to be conservative about what we put in that recycling bin because if that load has large amounts of unaccepted items, the entire load can be rejected and sent to the landfill. So play it safe. If you're in doubt, then only place glass bottles, plastic bottles and clean paper items in there. You’re still doing a good thing.
Composting isn’t as intimidating as it used to be I think. A lot of municipalities now offer drop-off or curbside programs. We have one here, absolutely free, and I keep my small, I think it’s a 2-gallon-size container in my chest freezer, and then I go dump it into the bulk bin at our community center each week.
If a 2 gallon bin doesn’t fit in your freezer, use whatever smaller reusable container you have. You don’t have to keep it in the freezer, of course, but I like it there because it has no chance of smelling or attracting flies or whatever.

4. The fourth bucket is Energy Usage
You can make simple swaps like using led lightbulbs instead of incandescent ones. So, with LED lightbubs. Now watts measure the amount of energy a bulb uses. So a 100W bulb needs 100 watts to operate. That’s with an incandescent light, OK? So the more watts used in your home, the higher your energy bill. 
For many years, we associated watts with brightness, right? A 100 watt bulb is brighter than a 60 watt one. Again, we’re talking incandescent bulbs here.
But we can't do that with LEDs because they need less energy to produce the same level of brightness that we're used to. Instead, we now need to look at Lumens which is the measure of brightness. 
So the higher the lumens, the brighter the bulb. You'll find the wattage equivalence on the LED bulb package so you'll know the brightness of that LED bulb. 
BUT you also want to take into account the color temperature of LED bulbs. For most interior lamp lights or pendants in living rooms, dining rooms and bedrooms, I default to 2700 Kelvin soft white or warm white lights. I don't like the daylight white or bright white LEDs that are like 5600 Kelvin because the light is a cold white light, and it feels awfully artificial. It’s reminiscent of fluorescent tube lights. So think about that.
I know LEDs can be a little confusing, but just think about that as you make your swaps.
Cold-water laundry is another low-effort, high-impact change. Most of the energy used by a washer goes to heating the water to wash. And most laundry detergent is now made to be effective in cold water, so it can work.
There are things I still wash with warmer water, like our sheets and towels. But everything else is fine in cold water, and in fact, washing in cold can extend the life of the fibers in your clothing.

5. Bucket five is Water Conservation
Shorter showers, running full loads, and fixing small leaks all make a significant difference. We know this.
But here in the US, the biggest source of water usage in households is probably watering the lawn. Our sprinklers are a huge culprit of water usage. So if there's any one thing you can do, it’s to reduce watering your lawn. 
Now, most of us aren’t going to want to do that. Our grass will go brown, who knows what the homeowner’s association will say, right?
So think about alternatives. If you plant some native drought-resistant landscaping plants in part of your backyard, that will reduce the water usage out there. 
That’s not a simple or super easy thing to change immediately, though. But if you’ve got a sprinkler system. Consider adding a sensor that will stop the sprinklers if it starts raining, and definitely change your sprinkler timers in winter or in the wetter seasons, right?. Don’t just set it and forget it.
6. The sixth bucket is Transportation.
Transportation is a huge source of U.S. emissions. Walking, biking, carpooling and taking public transportation are all great alternatives to driving ourselves. Are those options for you? Can you reduce one trip per week? That's already a positive step.

So these six categories: food, shopping, waste, energy, water, and transportation are the foundation of the 31-day challenge.
This isn’t about perfection. It’s about alignment. When you tweak your habits, you can naturally create a calmer, more intentional, more Beautiful way of living without totally giving up on the convenience that you count on as a busy mom.
So I’ve set up the 31 daily sustainable swaps in weekly bundles that I’ll send out once a week for 4 weeks. If you’d like to receive them, I’ve put the link for you to sign up for that in the show notes.
The thing about challenges is that if we miss a day, we tend to give up. And I don’t want you to give up, because each and every small action you take makes a real difference and you’ll feel good about it. 
So if you miss a day, that’s fine, just move on to the next day. If you miss an entire weekend or week because of visitors, or traveling, or the holiday, don’t sweat it. Just pick up the list again and continue on. You don’t have to do any of these on consecutive days, right?
My idea is to give YOU ideas. Simple, easy ideas that you can do, and the ideas are at your fingertips so you’re not going out to search anywhere for them.
My guess is that you’re already doing some of these, and if so, then give yourself a huge round of applause, and move to the next idea, ok?
Small, consistent shifts truly add up. You know this.
You don’t need a sustainability overhaul to create a lighter December. Tiny tweaks. That’s all it takes.
If you’re not following the podcast yet, please hit follow so you don’t miss any upcoming episodes.
Have a beautifully organized week. I’m Zee, and I’ll see you on the next episode. And I hope I’ll see you in the challenge.