4 Things You Can Do Right Now To Help Your Planet

• Bag it: Get reusable cloth bags for the grocery store and the dry cleaner. More than 100 billion plastic bags are thrown away every year.

• Stop junk mail: Every year 100 million trees are chopped down for junk mail sent to American homes. Contact the direct marketing association at dmachoice.org/mps to remove your name from mailing lists of their members.

• Shut down: The average computer left on all day uses nearly 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year, producing more than a ton of carbon emissions. So turn off your computer anytime you're not on it, and eliminate the screen saver function, which uses more energy than the sleep mode.

• A mug of your own: Every year American's throw away 25 billion polystyrene cups and 25 billion individual water bottles, most of wich end up in landfills. Instead buy a reusable to-go mug and a bottle that you can refill with filtered tap water.
  

O Magazine/Feb 2008/pg 209