Personal/Home

1. Choose organic and local produce when you can to help reduce the use of pesticides, preservatives, and fuel.

2. Head to the farmer's market for local eggs and chickens raised on grain and without antibiotics. Farm fresh eggs not only taste better, they use less fuel to get to your plate.

3. Recycle those cans and bottles instead of just throwing them away. One recycled aluminum can saves enough energy to run a 25-watt compact fluorescent (or a 100-watt incandescent light bulb) for nearly four hours!

4. Buying tissue paper products made from post-consumer content helps curb global warming pollution and save forests, water and energy. Visit www.nrdc.org to for information about environmentally friendly brands.

5. Try to use non-toxic and natural household cleaning products. Baking soda, hydrogen peroxide, lemon, and vinegar are safe and effective alternatives.

6. Avoid chlorinated household products such as paper towels, toilet paper, and coffee filters. Look for products that are unbleached or bleached with chlorine alternatives like oxygen or hydrogen peroxide.

7. Go for cardboard brick cartons or glass jars/bottles instead of metal cans -- the insides of many cans are lined with a chemical called BPA, which is associated with hormone disruption and can leach from the can liner into the food.

Energy/Water

8. Instead of scrubbing the dishes with a sponge under water, put everything in the dishwasher and run the rinse-and-hold cycle until you’re ready to wash a full load. You can save up to 6,500 gallons of water per year this way—not to mention save money on your water bill!

9. Spot-clean stains on clothing to avoid rewashing. Washing machines are the second largest water users in American homes. And when possible, use cold or warm water cycles since they use less water and energy than hot water cycles.

10. Unplug chargers for cell phones, cameras, and other hand-held products when they aren’t charging.

11. Shut off your home laptop or desktop computer, monitor, and printer when you aren’t using them. You can save up to $100 a year in energy costs by shutting off devices you aren’t going to be using anyway.

12. Plug televisions, computer equipment, game consoles and stereos into power strips that can be switched off at night or when not in use. Even when you think these products are off, together their standby consumption can be equivalent to that of a 60-watt light bulb running continuously.

13. Replace regular light bulbs with a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL). A CFL costs more upfront than a standard bulb, but in the end it can save you $30 to $60 on electricity during its lifetime—and it keeps 1 ton of global warming pollution out of the air.

14. Get the most out of your air conditioner by using fans to circulate cool air. This allows you to raise the thermostat and stay comfortable, and save on your electricity bill in the process.

Transportation

15. Check your tire pressure. If every American kept their tires properly inflated, we could save 2.8 billion gallons of gasoline a year and help curb global warming pollution.

16. Replace your car’s air filter and tune up the engine regularly. A new air filter can increase your car’s miles per gallon by up to 10% and a tune-up can boost your car’s miles per gallon from 4% to 40%.

17. Carpool! If every car carried just one more passenger on its daily commute, 32 million gallons of gasoline (and the pollution produced by it) would be saved each day.

18. If you're stuck in a traffic jam, waiting to pick someone up at the train station or elsewhere, turn off your engine. If your wait is longer than 30 seconds, restarting the engine uses less gas than leaving it running.

19. Ease up on the pedal. Slowing down from 75 to 65 miles per hour will drop your highway gasoline consumption about 15 percent. That's money in your pocket.

20. If every household replaced just one pack of regular napkins with 100 percent recycled napkins, we could save 1 million trees. When away from home, take only one napkin when you order food or beverages, and refuse a bag unless you really need one.

21. When possible, use public transportation—per year, public transportation in the U.S. reduces emissions of CO2 by more than 7.4 million tons. And using public transit or other alternatives to driving a car to work just one day per week can save the average U.S. commuter $236 per year.

Want to make a bigger difference? Visit www.nrdc.org where you will find all the tools, tips, and information you need to make good decisions about how you can help protect your health, your home, and the planet!