by Anne Gader

Created on: January 18, 2010   Last Updated: January 19, 2010

1. Shower instead of Bath
Save Water by not taking long hot baths, and save your not just water, but on water and electricity bills! If you cannot do without a shower, limit it to once a week, as a reward, rather than a habit. Instead, try showering instead, and limit yourself to no more than 15 minutes. For those who would like to save more money, you could collect water in a pail and scoop water out. In water-deprived places, this is how locals shower because it saves a lot more water. Estimated Savings: easily 35% off your existing water bill.

2. Tooth-brushing Cup
Turn off the tap when you're brushing your teeth. Instead, use a cup of water to gargle. Leaving the tap on is wasteful, and over the long run, expensive! Estimated Savings: at least half the usual amount of water used.

3. Bring Your Own Bag
Avoid using plastic bags. Either bring your own paper or cloth bag when grocery shopping, or use a pretty and quaint grocery basket! Most of the plastic bags that are given out at grocery stores ends up in the trash, and plastic bags are notoriously hard to degrade. IF you have to get some plastic bags, why not try to re-use them by using them to bag your trash?

4. Recycle Electronics
Dispose your electronic good properly, instead of throwing them in the dump. Well, if you can, don’t rush out to buy the newest electronic gadget to avoid excessive “churn” and use of precious metals which have to be mined from the earth, and plastics which are hard to degrade. If you are a geek, and can’t help buying the latest laptop, ipod, mobile phone, or kindle, at least make the effort to dispose of them the right way. You could sell them for cash on ebay, sell them to a Cash Converter near you so that someone else could give your products a second lease of life, or collect them and look out for exchange programs when they occur.

5. Give. Recycle. Re-Use
For what you can still use, re-use. For what you can’t recycle. For what don't want, give to Goodwill, thrift stores, or the Salvation Army. The best part about donating them away, you know that someone else gets a chance to buy them for cheap; you might be able to get a tax write off, and the charity benefits. Triple Good!

6. Every piece of paper can be recycled.

Use both sides of the paper, don't print, and read off the screen. If you use paper, collect them and recycle them. You could also use scraps of paper to collect the seeds from the fruits we eat before disposing them – it works well as a disposable tablemat! For colored papers that does not contain sensitive information, the pieces of paper could be shredded, and used as packing material (no need to buy bubble wrap)! Works just as well, and for no cost! Used papers also work perfectly well as kitty litter, or dog poo liner. There is no need to buy expensive custom pet liners when newspapers and used paper do the job just as well.

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