There are only four days left in 2015! Have you considered your New Year’s resolutions yet? If (like us) one of your priorities is to go green at home, check out our top eco-friendly suggestions:

Don’t Judge a Fruit by Its Cover: Approximately 30 to 40 percent of the United States’ food supply is thrown into the trash each year and as it decomposes, food in a landfill produces methane gas, which has 21x more global warming potential than CO2. What can you do to help? Start by buying ugly fruits and veggies from the grocer. Produce with a few bumps or bruises gets tossed all of the time, even though it’s still perfectly delicious. Ask for the tasty rejects at the store or find an organization that sells imperfect fruits or veggies in your area.

Play With Your Food: Or, at least get creative in how you use it. Instead of throwing away carrot tops and celery leaves, set them aside and make homemade stock. Adding ingredients like leftover meat bones or cheese rinds will only boost flavor. You can also pickle just about anything – scraps of onions, beets, lemons and most other produce. Banana peels can help feed or fertilize plants…stale bread can be turned into croutons or used to thicken soup…the list goes on!

Pay Attention to Packaging: Roughly 23 percent of waste in landfills is containers and packaging from consumer goods. The simplest way to go green here is to boycott plastic water bottles. (2.5 million plastic bottles are thrown away every hour.) Seek out brands with less packaging, especially plastic. Instead of buying items like granola and beans or lentils in a box or can, head to the bulk section of the store and purchase only what you need…in one small package. And don’t forget to bring your own reusable grocery bags.

Get Active, Get Loud: We’re not talking about working out, but you can “exercise” your right as a citizen. Environmental policy is influenced by a lot of factors; get involved by reaching out to your local lawmakers and telling them that you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, cut air pollution, increase recycling in your neighborhood, whatever is important to you. Follow local and national elections, lead by example, go green and practice what you preach.

Renergy makes it easy for farms, communities and businesses to go green by turning their organic waste into clean energy.