I am looking to make as many small changes with a big impact that I can this year.

Reducing, reusing and recycling can have a big impact on our environment. Determine if you really "need" an item before you purchase it and this will reduce the amount of what you will have to discard later.
When you do have to get rid of an item, recycle it. Some great resources for recycling information are the National recycling coalition, http://nrc-recycle.org/ and Earth 911 http://earth911.org/.
Reusing items is a great way to help the environment. Often you can find great ideas at craft or home improvement websites on ways to turn something old into something new and useful! Also donating items to charity you no longer need is a great way to help others and help the environment. There are so many ways you can go green and help the environment, why not start today?