Composting reduces the amount of food scraps dumped into landfills which normally slowly decompose into methane that’s 72 times more damaging to our Earth climate than carbon. For info on backyard or onsite composting go to www.phillycompost.com

Every moment you spend idling your car's engine means needlessly wasting gas, as well as rougher wear on your vehicle. Idling for more than 10 seconds wastes more gas than is needed for startup. Overall, Americans idle away 2.9 billion gallons of gas a year, worth around $78.2 billion.

More than half of all electricity consumers in the U.S. now have the option of purchasing green power from their utility. Find out how you can buy it by visiting the Department of Energy's state-by-state list of providers. You can also check with your own utility to see what's available. Go to www.energy.gov

It definitely pays to give a thought to your thermostat, since most households shell out 50 to 70% of their energy budgets on heating and cooling. For every degree you lower the thermostat, you'll save between 1 and 3% of your heating bill. Do the same thing in reverse with air conditioning.

An easy way to clean green is to turn the dial on your washing machine to cold. Most loads don't need hot water, and 90% of the energy used by washing machines goes into heating. The higher the water temperature, the higher the cost to you and the planet.

Around 100 million trees and 28 billion gallons of water are used to send junk mail to Americans every year, according to greendimes.com. You can stop 75% of unsolicited mail by registering on the Mail Preference Service on the Direct Marketing Association Website (for a fee of $1). Within 90 days, most unsolicited mail will stop. Go to www.dmachoice.org

Believe it or not, switching to recycled toilet paper can change the world. If every household in the United States bought just one four-pack of 260-sheet recycled bath tissue, instead of the typical tissue made from virgin fiber, it would eliminate 60,600 pounds of chlorine pollution, preserve 356 million gallons (1.35 billion liters) of fresh water and save nearly 1 million trees. And the best news is that a four-pack of recycled toilet paper costs about the same as a four-pack of conventional toilet paper.

Each year, 19 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. All those catalogs require more than 53 million trees and 56 billion gallons of wastewater to produce -- and many of us don't even know how we got on so many mailing lists! So grab that stack of catalogs piling up on your coffee table and clear out the clutter. Visit www.catalogchoice.org to put a stop to unwanted catalogs. warming.

Learn how to protect your pet from fleas and ticks without chemicals. Regular combing with a flea comb, bathing and vacuuming can reduce and control fleas. For more ways to keep your pets safe from toxic chemicals go to www.greenpaws.org