Here's a list of 10 things you can do around your home to make it an enviornmentally friendly reteat haven. These things are simple and easy to do with a lot of advantages for the future.

1)Build it Green

Trees, in a word, rock. They absorb heat-trapping carbon dioxide,
hold soil together to prevent landslides, and provide a rich habitat
for diverse plants and animals. Choose furniture made from eco-friendly
sources such as sustainably managed forests, bamboo, and reclaimed
wood. Buying vintage wherever possible, rather than adding something
new into the waste stream,
is always in style. Also, look for furniture that is durable and likely
long-lived-you'll save money on replacements in the future and prevent
more wasted materials from winding up in the landfill. And, if for some
reason, that dresser or dining table no longer suits your needs,
something in fine shape will always have takers via Craig's List, eBay,
or Freecycle.

2) Go Au Naturale

Our chemical arsenal may
be able to exterminate creepy crawlies and polish our countertops, but
they're slowly killing us, too. The man-made chemicals we favor are
like the obnoxious houseguest who overstays his welcome-an average of
200 industrial compounds, pollutants and other chemicals, for instance,
were recently discovered in the umbilical-cord blood of newborns.
(These included seven dangerous pesticides, some of which were banned in the U.S. more than 30 years ago.) We're serving our kids
potent chemical cocktails even before they're born-not quite the head
start they may have been hoping to get. Pesticides have also been
implicated in Parkinson's disease, infertility, brain damage, and
cancer. So ditch the poisons and choose natural, non-toxic, and equally
effective methods of cleaning and corralling pests.
You probably already have what you need in your kitchen to get started.
Chowing down on organically grown food will cut out pesticides from
your diet, as well.

3) Slay Energy Vampires

You may not know
it, but households across the globe are infested with vampires. Enegy
vampires, that is. Cleverly disguised as innocuous household appliances
(psst, your television is one of them), their nasty pointed teeth plunge deep into your wall socket, draining power
all hours of the day and night, even after you've switched them off.
(Americans pay $1 billion a year to power our televisions and VCRs
while they're turned off.) Other sleeper agents of the electric
undead that consume 1,000 kilowatt hours a year per household, while in
standby mode: your toaster, coffeemaker, hair dryer, PC, printer, cable
box, and cell phone charger.
You don't have to live in a constant state of fear, however, forever
checking behind your back for that one appliance you forgot to pull the
plug of. Just plug adjacent equipment into power strips with surge
protectors, and before you crawl under the safety of your covers-or
head out to work-simply flip the switch.

4) Get Off the Grid

Opt for clean, renewable energy if it's offered in your area. Low-impact sources such as wind, solar,
and hydroelectric power reduce our dependence on coal-burning power
plants, a major source of greenhouse-gas emissions. And because
harnessing the power of renewable "fuels" such as sun and wind are free, your electric bill is likely to scale down because of the reduced price of wholesale electricity.

5) The 3 Rs

Start rolling those Rs: Reduce, reuse, and recycle-and in that order. Let's face it, we're mired deep in ecological debt
because we're consuming more resources than nature can replenish. By
gorging on more than our fair share of the world's resources, we're
also diverting essentials such as food, clothing, and water from
communities in greater need. So let's recap: It's better to reduce your
personal consumption
than it is to reuse something, and it's less environmentally taxing to
reuse a product than to have it recycled. Separating recyclables from
your regular trash,
which barely takes any effort, is a no-brainer, of course; recycling
aluminum, for instance, takes as little as 5 percent of the energy we'd
need to manufacture virgin aluminum.

6) Get Better Mileage

Who knew cauliflower
were such globe-trotters? Or that jet-setting tomatoes racked up
frequent-flier miles? But it's true: North American produce typically travels
a minimum of 1,500 miles. Grapes can clock 2,143 miles cruising from
vineyards in Napa Valley to supermarket aisles in Chicago, gobbling up
barrels of crude oil and spewing pollutants and greenhouse-gas
emissions in their wake. By buying your produce locally, whether it's
through the farmers' market or a community-assisted agriculture
program, you can reduce your "food miles," otherwise known as the
distance your food has to travel to get from the farm to your plate.
Now that's fresh.

7) No Soliciting

Deforestation is
responsible for 25 percent of all carbon emissions released into the
atmosphere, through the burning and cutting of 34 million acres of trees annually. Save some virgin and old-growth forests by opting out of paper catalogs and browsing online, instead. Why did you think Al Gore
invented the Internet? Shed those extra 41 pounds of junk mail the
average American packs on each year by removing yourself from
direct-mail mailing lists; if you need a tad more help, companies such
as GreenDimes and 41pounds.org have got your back.

8) Paper Nor Plastic

Eschew plastic bags by
bringing your own reusable canvas totes the next time you're at the
supermarket or store. Because petroleum-based plastic isn't biodegradable,
it's certain to outlive you-by about a millennium or so. Each year,
thousands of marine animals, including the endangered leatherback
turtle, choke to death on plastic trash
they mistake for snackable morsels. Our unholy love for plastic
disposables has also bred a swirling vortex of plastic trash the size
of Texas in the North Pacific Ocean-not surprising when you consider
that Americans run through about 100 billion plastic bags annually, using up an estimated 12 million barrels of oil.

9) Seeing Stars

The average home can pump out twice as much greenhouse-gas emissions as the average car.
Purchasing energy-saving Energy Star-rated appliances, electronics, and
lighting can help mitigate that, while slashing a third of your
electric bill. (A power guzzler is nobody's friend.) Improving the energy efficiency of your home could even earn you tax credits from Uncle Sam.

10) One Bright Idea

If you're going to do
just one thing for the planet, make it the switch to compact
fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Although they cost several times more
upfront than regular incandescent light bulbs,
they also last about 10 times longer, which means that for every CFL
you screw in, you'll be saving eight incandescent light bulbs from
landfill purgatory. Plus, you'll save some serious cash in the long
run. Because CFLs use 75 percent less energy, swapping one incandescent
bulb for a CFL reduces carbon dioxide by 500 pounds a year; replacing
17 has the equivalent effect of taking one car off the road for a year.
Just remember to recycle spent bulbs
responsibly - CFLs contain trace amounts of mercury, which although
isn't enough to be hazardous to you, could pose a problem in landfills
when mercury from multiple bulbs leaches into the ground.

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