If you need to purchase trash can liners, look for a brand with 100% postconsumer recycled content. Producing trash bags from recyled plastic requires less energy than manufacturing those same bags from virgin plastic. If just one in ten US households began purchasing trash bags made from 100% recycled materials, the annual energy savings could meet the heating needs of four thousand households in Fargo, North Dakota, for the entire year.

When you by poultry, try to buy only as much as you think you'll need. On average, each American throws away about twelve pounds of uneaten poultry per year. If over the course of a year each household purchased just one less pound of chicken, the total water saved by not having to package and produce it would be sixty-six billion gallons--more than all the residents of California use in a week.

Use fewer plastic bags. US households dispose of nearly one hundred billion plastic bags annually, millions of which end up littering the environment and harming endangered marine animals. By reducing plastic bag consumption by just two bags per week, you'll throw away at least one hundred fewer bags per year. If tied together handle to handle, these plastic bags would make a rope long enough to wrap around the earth more than 126 times.

If you can, select paper towel rolls with smaller-size sheets in order to extend the life of each roll. (check the package label for sheet sizes.) A decrease in US household consumption of just three rolls per year would save 120,000 tons of waste and $4.1 million in landfill dumping fees.

Reuse your paper bags from the grocery store as trash can liners. By reusing a paper grocery sack three times before recycling or retiring it as a trash can liner, the average US household could reduce the production of virgin-forest-derived paper by 55lbs per year. If just 5% of US households adopted this habit, the effect in terms of trees saved per year would be a mature forest the size of Manhattan. After thirteen years, the forest would cover all of NYC.

You can lower your exposure to pesticides by 90% just by choosing organic varieties of certain fruits and vegetables. If just 1% of the nation's farmland converted to organic (nonchemical) agricultural systems, it would remove 26 million pounds of pesticides per year from the food we eat and from the environment. If you buy organic, you'll encourage this type of farming.

Buy a single gallon jug instead of purchasing multiple smaller containers. On a volume basis, it takes less energy to produce the bigger containers and generates less waste. The average household buying 63 gallons of milk per year (including flavored) could run its refrigerator for 36 hours with the energy saved by purchasing bigger containers.

Admin Note: Costco is leading the way in organic milk bulk sales. They offer three packs of organic milk for $8.89 and the cardboard containers last up to a month unlike the plastic jugs that allow refrigerator light in which spoils milk quickly.