Today, climate change, waste management and recycling have become hot topics and many more Americans are looking for new ways to reduce their own carbon footprints. Here a few suggestions that will save you money and aid in the earth’s recovery:

1. Save $100 per year by switching from paper towels to cloth and reduce the 3,000 tons of paper towels that go into the landfill “daily.”
2. Take one less car trip a week and keep 31 pounds of CO2 out of the atmosphere
3. Buy local, organic produce and reduce the amount of pesticides in the environment and fuel used to ship produce
4. Avoid individually packaged items and reduce 80 million tons of waste containers and packaging produced each year in the United States
5. Substitute one vegetarian meal and save at least 2.5 pounds of greenhouse gases and 238 gallons of water.
6. Buy biodegradable trash bags
7. Use reusable canvas totes for groceries
8. Use all-natural products for personal hygiene
9. Use earth-friendly household cleaning products
10. Unplug cell phone charger and little-used appliances to save energy and dollars
11. When ordering coffee to go, use your own thermal mug; when ordering to stay, request a real cup
12. Turn off the dry cycle on your dishwasher (if 10,000 people do the same, the CO2 averted is equal to planting 3,343 trees)
13. Limit showers to 5 minutes or less and save 1,000 gals of water a month

Here are some helpful links:

To determine your current CF score visit: www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator

To learn how to lower your CF by donating money to projects that generate clean energy or protect renewable resources by planting trees, for example, visit: www.carbonfootprint.com. One credit represents one ton of carbon dioxide removed from the environment.

Visit: www.earth911.com for recycling advice