This Week issues a challenge to its readers: complete this checklist by the end of the year

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What would you do to help the environment? That's the question we're asking this week, and every week for the rest of the year (that's 21 chances to hop on the bandwagon) as part of This Week's Environmental Challenge.

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Biking is one way to help out the environment.

The important aspect of this challenge is to attempt to make change. It doesn't matter if we slip up one day and buy a sandwich wrapped in plastic wrap, as long as we make a concentrated effort to change the way we live our lives as a whole.

The power of a positive role model is incredible. Every time you walk into your favourite coffee shop with your travel mug in tow, you're giving another person the inspiration to do the same. Every time you make a trip to the composter with your grandson, you're teaching him the value of taking care of the planet.

With each passing week, take note of the ways your neighbours, friends and co-workers are helping the environment, and applaud their efforts. Did your neighbour just install solar heating? Ask her about the savings. Does a co-worker make notes on note pads created from re-used paper? Ask him to help you create a few, too.

It's time to prove the adage "one person can make a difference" is true. We've compiled a checklist of 21 things you can do to help make our environment a little cleaner. Some of them you may already be doing, other will be harder.

Take this checklist and incorporate one item every week for the next 21 weeks. Send us your feedback on how easy or hard the tasks are for you and your family. Take pictures of your new habits, and use them as motivation, or send them to us to motivate others.

At the end of the year, you'll be able to look back at these 21 weeks and feel you've accomplished something. And when you grandchildren ask you, five, 25 or 50 years from now, what you did to help take care of the world, you'll be able to tell them.

We can complain all we like about the mark that big business and third-world countries make on the earth, or we can do our part to change things, one week at a time. The choice is ours. The joy of living in the free world is that we have that choice, and we can make it over and over, every day.