Top 12 tips for going green

Looking for ways to live more sustainably? Here are twelve simple things you can do right now.

Sure, they're just little drops in a great big bucket, but think about this: Either way, you're dripping into one bucket or the other.

When my grandchildren are raising their own children twenty years from now, I want them to be able to say with pride that their grannie helped make sure they got to live in a world as pretty--or prettier--than ours is today. Wouldn't you like to say the same?

These tips are easy enough to implement. As more and more of us add them to our routine, we'll make a bigger and bigger impact.

It's fun walking down the street and spying a refillable water bottle peeking out of someone's bag. Or to count how many people are holding refillable mugs in line at the coffee bar. We smile at one another, compare mugs, get to chatting and before you know it, we're giggling and having a great time. Join the party!

Quite often the water we buy in bottles is the same water we would drink from the tap. Or, worse, it's from a tap thousands of miles away and had to be shipped to us.

Either way, we can get fresher, frequently safer water from our own taps. I carry a handsome Kleen Kanteen everywhere I go. You can too.

Save money. Save the planet. The following collection gives you an idea of the versatility and variety of reusable, easy-clean stainless steel bottles available for all your family's needs.

I have four grandkids, one of whom is still a toddler. Ever since the first one came along, we've had a couple of these in our house for those times we need a sippy cup.

This easy-hold 1-1/2 cup bottle comes with an adapter cap for the children in your life. No spills!

Easy to clean, with the wide mouth, and has a BPA-free insert that keeps the juice, milk or water coming out slow enough for the little ones. When they get older, leave it out.

To avoid plastic or glass baby bottles, for those times Mom isn't nearby, these stainless steel bottles have about as little plastic as you can get..

No BPA or pthalates in this silicone nipple, and no worries if the baby tosses the bottle while you're out and about. The stainless steel won't break.

Once again, easy clean. Stainless is as odorless and tasteless as glass, so this is a win-win however you look at it.

Save with a family pack in four colors. Everyone has their own bottle.With a couple of these family packs, Mom and Dad--or Mom and Mom, or Dad and Dad, however it goes in your family--get to pick their favorite color. So do the kids.

Same 18/8 food-grade stainless steel, but a different brand, these bottles have an all-steel lid, with the exception of the rubber gasket that makes them leak-proof.

Carry your own bag to the grocery store. Old and basic as this tip is, it's one of the easiest to adopt. If you're just starting out on the green trail, get in the habit of grabbing a reusable bag every time you go out the door.

Help eliminate plastic bag pollution in our trees, on our sidewalks and, most importantly, in our oceans, where millions of innocent wildlife strangle and choke to death every year on plastic bags and other discarded plastic bits, like toothbrushes, combs, and water bottles.

BYOB!

You'll never be without a reusable bag again if you attach one of these to your key chain.

Too big for your keys? Tuck it in your handbag or attach it to your belt loop. It's easy enough to carry, one way or another.

There's a full-sized sturdy shopping bag inside each one of these tiny stuff sacks, which is part of the bag, so you'll never lose it.

Unfurl the bag at the market. Holds as much as a typical grocery sack. The easy-carry handles are wide enough to be comfortable on the hands, unlike plastic grocery-store bags.

When you're home, unload the groceries and stuff the bag back in its attached pocket. Takes ten or twenty seconds, even for my arthritic hands.

Organic cotton muslin produce bags are an easy way to replace those plastic film bags when shopping for produce. Clean and simple.

Who needs to bring home brand new one-use plastic produce bags after every shopping trip? Keep a few on hand for your celery and greens that do better in plastic. Just wash and reuse them.

For everything else, carry reusable, washable unbleached muslin bags in an assortment of sizes. They get your bulk goods and your produce home in fine shape.

This is one of my favorites.

Big, roomy, and made of recycled cotton, eliminating manufacturing waste, this bag is sturdy enough, with its flat bottom, for large squashes, milk bottles and the like.

According to the Clean Air Council, "Every year, Americans throw away enough paper and plastic cups, forks, and spoons to circle the equator 300 times." What's more, those of us who work in an office discard about 500 one-use coffee cups a year.

Most coffee shops offer a small discount when you bring your own mug. At Starbucks, it's 10 cents every time you buy coffee. That's $50 a year for the average office worker. For me while I was working downtown, at 3 vente's a day, that added up to $78 a year! What would you do with an extra $50-$75?

Bring your own mug!

Sir Paul McCartney is a champion of Meat Free Mondays, and his song tells how choosing to go veggie just one day a week can help to green the planet and improve quality of life for all of us. Enjoy the slide show, or listen to the tune while you read the rest of this page.

Visit Meatless Mondays for more info and lots of tasty recipes.

Just out, and one of the best books available on choosing a diet high in protein-rich, nutrient-rich, delicious plant-based foods.

Reduce food waste

We're getting better, since we installed the peel and stick dry erase board below, but I still had to discard these once gorgeous organic lettuces and veggies today, along with leftover French toast. I still have a ways to go on this one.

Thankfully, San Francisco collects food waste and composts it in their industrial-sized composting facility. These scraps will make black gold for someone's garden. Still, I'd rather have eaten this food before it started to slime.

Check your refrigerator often. Eat creatively.

This handy removable board on our refrigerator, with its companion marker, serves three purposes.

1. Tracks dates we added fresh veggies, dairy products and leftovers, so we always know what needs to be used before it's time is up
2. Keeps tabs on frozen foods that might get buried, forgotten and freezer burned
3. Provides a convenient place to jot down grocery items for our next shopping trip

The marker, on the right above the board, is attached with removable peel-and-stick Velcro, so we never have to hunt for it. The butterfly magnet is our granddaughter's creation. We enjoy seeing it there as much as she does.

With white on white, you can hardly see the image, but this peel-and-stick dry-erase board is very similar to mine.

It comes with a marker that attaches with Velcro and an eraser, so you never have to look for the pen.

Veggies getting old? Chunk 'em and toss 'em in a freezer bowl! Add all the peels, butt ends, tough kale stems--any edible but not so pretty parts to your freezer bowl. When it's full, make vegetable stock for delicious, nutritious soups and stews.

Learn how to make Easy Veggie Soup Stock From Scratch using this money-saving, food-saving method.

It's true for any family these days, but especially if you buy organic: Saving money on the grocery bill counts. Saving perfectly good produce and leftover dishes from the landfill is just as important.

Make every ounce of those expensive vegetables count, and keep that food out of the landfill. Here's how: Stretch Your Organic Food Budget with Leftovers So Good They Taste Like First Time.

According to Jonathon Bloom, we in the United States throw away nearly half the food we buy. But that's not all. We pay for that food loss in more ways than cash from our pocketbooks. We pay for it in lost energy, increasing our dependence on foreign oil, or worse today, fracking. Take a look.

You and I have a choice. We can be drops in the food waste bucket, or we can be drops in the food well-eaten bucket, saving energy, helping to make the United States--or wherever we live--less dependent on foreign oil, conserving our precious water and feeding our hungry children.

In America's Wasteland, Bloom gives statistics that will knock your socks off, but he doesn't stop there. He also gives us practical tips on how to make sure we're dropping our food into the right bucket.

Refined, white granulated sugar is raw sugar that has had the molasses removed. Brown sugar is granulated white sugar with molasses added back. Why bring one more one-use plastic bag into the house when you can make your own in just a couple of minutes every time you need it.

Eliminate those hard rocks of unused brown sugar forever. Make your own in minutes, just in time. Here's how.

If your recipe calls for 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, measure 1/2 cup evaporated cane sugar and stir in a teaspoon or so organic unsulphered molasses, depending how dark you need your brown sugar.

A common table fork makes the mixing go fast. That's all there is to it!

Remember this simple rule of thumb: One cup granulated sugar, mixed with molasses, makes one cup packed brown sugar.

Just as you can make your own brown sugar, you can make your own powdered or icing sugar.

This is another easy way to reduce the number of one-use plastic bags you bring into your home, and it saves on the grocery budget too. It's so simple!

It's best to make this in small batches of 1-2 cups. A cup of organic, evaporated cane sugar makes almost exactly a cup of powdered sugar. Put a cup of sugar in your blender, make sure the lid and top pour cover are on tight, then power the blender on high until you have a fine powder. It usually takes about five minutes in my small blender.

Not only will you save one-use plastic bags, but your powdered sugar will be pure sugar, unlike the stuff you buy in the stores, which apparently has additives of one kind and another. A popular brand, C&H, for example, contains 3 percent corn starch, according to their product page. Who knew?

I store my homemade powdered sugar in Fido jars--my favorite bulk storage solution--and have never had a problem with it clumping or pebbling. I found one container at the back of the pantry that I had labeled over a year before, and it made a lovely, smooth icing with no trouble at all.

Save money, save the planet, and keep plastic out of our trees, waterways and oceans.

My family and I didn't think we could do this. Boy were we wrong! It turned out to be far easier than we thought. Learn how easy it is to kick your paper towel habit once and for all.

By the time you reach the end of that page, you will have a doable plan for easing into what may, at this moment, seem like an impossible task. Give it a look.

Cube bread heels and let dry on cutting board for an hour or two. Freeze in airtight container until ready to use.

For crunchy croutons in salad, thaw till break apart without crumbling. Toss with your favorite spices and toast in a hot, dry, cast iron skillet for 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently, till lightly caramelized.

For a crunchy-tender casserole topping, thaw as above. Toss with spices, salt and pepper to complement the casserole flavors. Lay single layer over top of casserole and bake as usual. Excellent with shredded cheese sprinkled over the top.

LED bulbs are even safer than fluorescent bulbs on the market today, and they give lovely light, like daylight.

The manufacturer guarantees this bulb for 5 years, and says it should give light four hours a day for 25 years! Low energy, it consumes only 7 watts but provides the illumination equivalent of 60 watts.

Thank you for visiting this page. I'd love to hear from you. Which of these tips are you already using and which, if any, are brand new to you? Got a favorite of your own you didn't find here? I encourage you to share it so the rest of us can give it a try.