Save water. Don't let the water run when you're brushing your teeth. Just turn it on when you're ready to rinse. The same goes when doing dishes. If you do dishes by hand, turn the water on and off as you rinse rather than just letting it run the whole time.

Recycle, recycle, recycle! - Save plastic containers, bottles, newspaper, aluminum cans, and so on. Most counties have free recycling bins that they provide and you can get a weekly pickup.

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Turn your thermostat down in your home. Use blankets and extra clothing to keep you warm.

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Seal your home. There are usually air leaks around doorways, windows, floors and attics. Use caulk or weatherstripping to keep the air out. If you have a window air conditioner, make sure it is properly sealed and put a cover over it in the winter.

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Homes that have crawl spaces... open the little vents in the foundation of the house in the Spring. This allows air to flow underneath your house and keep it cool. Be sure to close these vents in the Fall. This keeps cold air from getting under there.

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Save water by taking showers instead of baths. Or at the very least, alternate back and forth from baths to showers. Every little bit helps.

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Make sure all washers are full before washing. This includes washing machines and dish washers. If they aren't full, use the low-water settings for smaller loads.

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Get into the habit of turning off the lights when you leave the room. Ask your family members to do the same. Also, it is not always necessary to have several lights on at once in a living room area. Maybe use just one bright lamp instead of three or four.

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For flashlights, toys and some power tools, use rechargeable batteries instead of throw-away batteries. Rechargable batteries can sometimes last up to twice as long.

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When washing clothes, always use cold water for rinsing. Cold water rinses out leftover detergent and dirt just as well as warm water, and saves dollars on your energy bill!

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Use compact fluorescent bulbs! They are four times more efficient than incandescent bulbs. If you don't believe it, switch your light bulbs for a month and check out your next electric bill.

Try to avoid plastic water bottles. Install a filtration unit on your home tap or purchase a filtration pitcher for your refrigerator. And, if you need your water on the go, either re-use an old plastic bottle or purchase an insulated mug.

When you purchase electronic items, make sure they have the "Energy Star" logo on the outside of the box, or that this is mentioned in the product description. Electronics marked with this logo consume less energy than electronics without this notation.

How much do you conserve? Take a carbon footprint quiz to find out! You just may need to re-evaluate what you do and don't do to keep green.

Close the blinds at night to reduce the amount of heat lost through the windows. Similarly, keep the blinds or curtains closed as much as you can during the Summer months as this will help keep the room cooler during the day as it will help block out the sun's rays.

Avoid buying paper plates and napkins. Buy cloth napkins instead.

In the days when soap operas really were sponsored by laundry soaps, people measured how clean their clothes got by the amount of suds produced during the wash cycle.

Today's automatic washers--both top-loaders and front-loaders--rely on low-sudsing detergent to achieve maximum cleaning without oversudsing. While this is true of the HE (high-effiency) brands in particular, even "conventional" detergents make less suds than their counterparts of even 20 years ago.

Some people think because there are little or no suds in the water, their clothes aren't getting really clean--and add more detergent. DON'T DO IT. Excessive detergent makes rinsing the clothes more difficult, and the powerful cleaners and enzymes in today's HE products may actually damage your clothes if too much is used.

You end up wasting water, detergent, clothes, and money!

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If you MUST use paper plates and napkins, use white ones. Colored napkins and plates have dyes you can do without.

Or better yet, use plain white paper towels for your "napkins." Why pay twice for the same basic product?

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Many supermarkets have plastic recycling bins at the front of the store...one chain in the St. Louis area recycles not only their plastic bags, but also plastic wrappers from newspapers, bread bags, and some food products. In their case, look for bags with "2" or "4"; those are the most often-recycled items.

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There's one kind of #2 plastic bottle that no recycler will take: The ones that previously held motor oil. The oil makes the plastic unrecyclable (and provides a hazmat hazard no recycler needs--or wants).

Like it or not, you have to dispose such bottles in the trash....

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