5. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle at Home

The world’s largest recycling bin (at around 35 feet in height) in Berlin, Germany.
Michael Urban/AFP/Getty Images
Recyclers are dressed as bins and stand beside the world’s largest recycling bin (at around 35 feet in height) in Berlin, Germany during European Recycling Week in 2004.

­Slow down. Take a breath. Take stock of the way you live. If you look carefully and objectively, you'll likely find some areas where you can easily trim a bit of fat. Getting back to the basics is an excellent start. To greenify your house, start with the people who live in it and reduce, reuse and recycle.

Reduce. Many of us buy coffee on the way to work every morning -- it's simply convenient. All of those paper cups and coffee clutches tend to have at least some post-consumer recycled content, but once your joe is poured, that's usually the death knell for their life cycles. What's more, while your car idles in the drive-thru line, you're emitting carbon dioxide. Instead, try making your coffee at home before you hit the road. It's a safe bet your favorite spot sells the same bulk beans they use to make your morning coffee. Get a reusable to-go cup, fill it up and you're all set. Just be sure to unplug your coffee maker before you leave; no point in having one more energy vampire sucking juice while you're gone. And morning coffee's just the beginning. Use your imagination: In what other areas can you trim you consumption?

Reuse. There are a lot of items you may discard that can fulfill a second purpose around your house. Water is one (more on that on the next page), and food is, too. Those coffee grounds, potato peelings, brown bananas and rotten peas that Shel Silverstein reported Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout found so distasteful are black gold as compost for your garden. Ironically, food you normally might throw away can actually beget more food when you use it as fertilizer. You can purchase compost bins or make your own for little or no money.

HowStuffWorks' brethren at TreeHugger.com also suggest bringing those Styrofoam packing peanuts back to the shipping store for reuse [source: TreeHugger]. And how about the dry cleaning hangers that you just end up throwing away? Most cleaners happily accept intact hangers to use over and over again.

Recycle. Yes, you probably have a recycling bin that you toss your stuff into. It's become easier than ever with the introduction of single-stream recycling, which allows you to put all of your stuff in one bin to leave at the curb. But exactly how much of this will get recycled largely depends on you. Tossing an unrinsed laundry detergent bottle into the recycling bin probably won't amount to any recycled plastic. The residue will make the plastic the container is made from less pure and maybe even keep it from being sold. Clean waste is much more likely to be recycled; after all, it's easier to reduce back into its original parts [source: Minnesota Recycling Program]. So cleaning out your laundry detergent bottle and discarding its cap before you toss it into the bin will increase the likelihood it actually gets recycled.

Recycling applies to not only what goes out of your house but also what comes in. Everything from roof shingles to drywall is made with some recycled content. Just keep an eye out for the words post-consumer recycled material. This means that some of the ingredients lived a former life as something else and were recycled into what you're purchasing. The higher the percentage of post-consumer recycled material in an item, the greener it is.

So you've got the three Rs down. Find out on the next page how minding your water usage can help you live more sustainably.