- Recycle or reduce your water bottles or choose to reuse with a refillable water bottle made of a refill-safe material. Use water filters on your faucets at home to ensure a clean supply of drinking water.
- Reduce hot water use. Wash your clothes in cold or warm water to save up to 500 pounds of CO2 per year. Rinse dishes in cold water, and wait to run the dishwasher until it is full.
- Reuse plastic and paper bags. Reusing both plastic and paper shopping bags significantly reduces both emissions and waste. All Kowalski's stores offer a nickel-per-bag refund to encourage you.
- Change your lights. Replacing one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb will save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.
- Turn off electronics. Turning off your electronics when you're not using them will save thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Some appliances use electricity even when turned off, so unplug those used infrequently.
- Adjust your thermostat. Moving your thermostat down 2 degrees in the winter and up 2 degrees in the summer could save 2,000 pounds of CO2.
- Buy local. Purchase locally-grown food when possible to support independent, local farms and the environment. They use fewer resources on the way to your plate, and they're usually fresher too, since they're typically picked more recently.
- Eliminate junk mail. Use these sources to cut down on junk mail and save trees, water and energy: DirectMail.com (a quick, free way to reduce junk mail); DMA Consumer Assistance (junk mail can fall by 75% in three months); and OptOut (never receive a pre-approved credit card offer again - call 1-888-5-OPTOUT).