Consider your time in the shower. If you reduce that time by just a few minutes each day, you can save as much as 20-30 gallons of water. A day!

If you are a bath person, instead of filling the tub, fill it half full instead. You’ll still get just as clean, but you can save as much as 4,500 gallons of clean water a year. Dude! That much? Yes!

OK, here’s the flushing part. You knew this was coming! Flush less often. Borrow the moniker from the California drought of a few years ago. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down.”  Better yet, invest is some toilet water saving devices and tricks. New toilets come with double handles that allow you to control how much water you use on each flush — an little or a lot. Or, just put a brick in the tank to reduce your water usage. The toilet will only use the volume that is in you tank.

Finally, at least for today, don’t use the toilet as a trash can by throwing all manner of trash in it. That especially includes anything with chemical composition and outdated drugs. Dispose of them more appropriately.

Want more good ideas? Get Shades of Green from Amazon.com

Let’s start in the bathroom.

One very simple technique is to simply turn off the water while you are brushing you teeth. While that toothbrush and toothpaste are doing their thing, running water accomplishes nothing other than wasting water. Just turn off the water while you brush, then turn it back on to rinse. You can save as much as seven gallons a minute just with this simple technique!

Men: while you are shaving, do the same thing. Turn off th water while slicing off that facial hair, then turn it back on again when it’s time to rinse. You’ve saved at least another seven gallons.

Leaking fixtures: check all your bathroom and kitchen water fixtures for leaks. If they are leaking, fix them. A leaking toilet can use as much as 90,000 gallons of water in just one month! Wasted water, wasted money.

A dripping faucet can waste water too. It may not look like much, but a dripping faucet can waster as much as 20 gallons a day!. If you have leaking or dripping faucets, fix them and save.

Simple measures with significant environmental and financial savings. More in our next post.

Want more good ideas? Get Shades of Green from Amazon.com.

We use it everywhere. At home, at the office. And while it renewable, we still need more if it in some parts of the country (and world) and we also need to ensure the water available is clean and usable by humans.

Did you know that about one-third of the water we use during the summer goes on grass — not into people?!? In the average large city in the United States we use 50 to 75 million gallons of water a day just to water our grass so it is green!

In most of the world people get by on just 2.5 gallons of water per day. Yet in teh U.S., the average person uses 400 gallons a day!And yet, even in the U.S., states are experiencing water shortages. Florida is a good example, as is the Southwest. California has, in the past, had to ration water. Los Angeles already has to import water to support its population. Las Vegas is a water sponge as well.

Water is precious, yet we waste it with abandon. For the next few blog posts, we’ll explore this problem and provide some practical solutions for the average person to conserve water without making major changes in lifestyle. Stay tuned.

A great disappointment to me. And a major lost opportunity until we get sufficient momentum to change behaviors by mandate rather than by persuasion.

They have tried all the half measures. Publicity campaigns, recycle drop off points in strategic locations, Mayor endorsements and statements. But nothing works because we have not made the real commitment. Mandatory recycling.

And I don’t really understand that. I’ve lived in Europe for many years. My last location was Belgium where recycling is not only mandatory, you can be cited for not recycling.

Does your city recycle? Are you in the same boat we are — living in the 21th century rather than the 21st? We cannot afford NOT to recycle.

If your city does not require recycling at the curbside, I urge you to begin a campaign to change that. We cannot continue to sustain landfills full of reusable materials.

Be an activist on this one issue and it can make a major difference.

Looking for more recycling ideas? Get your own copy of Shades of Green at Amazon.com.

Start with anything aluminum. Recycle all aluminum cans like soda cans, foil and foil packaging.

Copper is one of the most recyclable of all metals. It’s 100 percent recyclable! Don’t toss copper, recycle it. Oh, and bronze and brass are copper alloys. They are also recyclable.

Put metals back into the system, not back in the ground. Recycle them.

Most plastic will NOT break down (biodegrade) in landfills. That means all those plastic containers you dump into the trash every day are going to be with us forever. Let’s stop that madness!

What makes it even more maddening is that most plastic materials can not only be recycled, but be reused to make other plastic materials. So let’s explore the wonderful world of plastics.

First, what’s the number? Yes, all plastic items are numbered according to use and recyclable content.

Plastics #’s 1 and 2 can be recycled. These are mostly things like milk jugs, liquid detergent and plastic soft drink bottles. Rinse them and remove any labels. Remove the caps. They are usually not recycled (put them in your trash).

Plastic #5 is the least recyclable and is used for packaging such as cottage cheese, margarine and vitamins. Many recyclers will not take these, but these items are easy for you to reuse. So consider those containers as your own Bed, Bath and Beyond.

OK, so where are the numbers you ask.. On all plastic containers, one the bottom in many cases, the number will be stamped. Simply look it up and recycle as appropriate.

Looking for more recycling ideas? Get your own copy of Shades of Green at Amazon.com.

Newspapers, of course, are the first thing to collect in a container. If you recycle a four-foot stack of newspapers you save one entire 40-foot fir tree from destruction for new paper products!

Corrugated cardboard is also highly recyclable. But it must be dry.

Unfortunately, plastic or waxy coated cardboard, like pizza boxes, cannot be recycled. So…avoid them. Don’t buy products in those kinds of containers.

Recycle magazines, glossy paper, envelopes, phone books, paper packaging, etc. Put it all in one bin. Collect it all.

Start a new behavior pattern in your household to recycle all paper products and avoid purchasing those that cannot be recycled.

For instance, it takes 95 percent less energy to produce an aluminum can from recycled aluminum than from bauxite ore. It takes 40 percent less energy to make a glass bottle from recycled glass than it does to make one from sand, soda ash and limestone. In addition, recycling means less littering.

Ready to recycle? Good. What should you recycle? Consider special containers for paper and cardboard; plastics; glass; and metals. These are the four major recycled materials.

Tune in tomorrow and we’ll talk details of each category.

1. Change your external light bulbs to CFLs (fluorescents). Just this one change can save you $35 a year in electricity cost for just four bulbs!. They use 66 percent less energy and last three times longer!

2. While we’re talking about outside lighting — connect your external lights to a sensor that turns them on and off as ambient lighting conditions suggest. This keeps their usage to a minimum. They turn on only when it’s dark enough outside to need them.

OH. Here’s a thought: change your outside lighting to solar powered lights. The amount of light the emit is much dimmer, but usually sufficient, and the energy cost is nil! Best used for walkways and specific area lighting.

Ideas from Shades of Green, available at Amazon.com.

Think about eliminating or decreasing consumption of cow’s milk, choosing soy, rice or almond milk options instead.

One advantage is you’ll avoid ingesting hormones and antibiotics used in raising cattle.

Plus, how dairy cows live and how they are fed have fueled controversy in recent years. The use of pasture land, the energy needed on a dairy farm to keep milk production up and cows’ contribution to the global emissions of methane (about 28 percent of all methane emissions!) are all important considerations.

Try these substitutes and see if they will work for you.

[An idea from Shades of Green, p. 13.]