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Eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables is one part of living a healthy lifestyle. Eating all of those fruits and veggies produces a lot of seeds, cores, peels and husks. Some people think that leftover fruit and veggie bits are trash and don't realize what they could be - fertile, organic soil. Composting may be the perfect use for fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds, tea leaves, spoiled foods, yard waste and other organic materials that would otherwise end up in a landfill.

Landfills are A) An increasingly expensive strategy for solid waste disposal. B) A potential source of groundwater contamination and methane pollution. C) A possible source of raw materials for manufacturing in the future. D) All of the Above.
My answer was D.

Recycling is one way to reduce many of the problems posed by landfills. While recycling isn't perfect, it diverts valuable materials and toxic substances from being buried in an unreliable grave.

Fresh water is a precious, highly valuable resource, doubly so in the American Southwest. The last thing in the world we should do with it is to pour it down the drain. But outdated plumbing fixtures do just that by wasting many gallons of water when only one or two are needed. If you don't have low-flow toilets and plumbing fixtures in your house yet, then now is the time to swap them out.

Do you remember when it was dark at night? I mean REALLY dark. Step outside your door an hour after sunset and you'll see what I mean. Between the neighbor's always-on security lights, the glaring streetlights, and the 24 hour stores around the block the night time sky isn't all that dark anymore. If you live in a city or even most towns it has become difficult if not impossible to see most of the stars anymore.

How do you like your coffee?

Leading a more sustainable life makes our daily choices a bit more complex. For instance, when you have a cup of coffee have you thought about what that cup is made from? Choosing a cup seems to be a simple decision, but like good coffee it's a subject that's dark and hard to see through to the bottom.

One of the terms that is bandied about a lot recently is Carbon Footprint. A person's carbon footprint is the amount of CO2 they are responsible for producing each year. If you intend to live a more sustainable life then reducing your carbon footprint is a good way to measure that. The first question to answer is "What is my carbon footprint." Thanks to the wonders of the Internet CarbonFootprint.com can help you measure your CO2 output.

Paper or Plastic? I'm asked that simple question about once a week and I now have a better answer - Canvas. I've known for a while that neither paper or plastic is a great shopping bag choice. Paper bags, as they are currently produced in the U.S., require cutting down about 14 million trees each year. The 30 billion plastic bags Americans use each year require 12 million barrels of crude oil for their manufacture. Why not short-circuit the debate between the lesser of the two evils and use a canvas bag?

When I first moved into my home the front and back yards were a mess. Other than (thankfully) a few trees, both the front and back yards were barren. My new home featured a landscape of bare dirt, rocks and a few weeds. The realtor offered to get the seller to pay for a load of gravel to spread in the front yard, but I said no. Crazy? Perhaps. I just can't stand gravel-scaping in lieu of actual plants. So, instead of covering up the problem, I started planning a native and xeric landscape around my home.

Buy it once and make it last.

I like to save money. That's not unusual, but my desire to be frugal can lead to being cheap. Unfortunately, being cheap leads to spending more money, because cheap items often don't work well or last long. I seem to have this cheap/frugal problem any time I have to choose between two or more widgets in a store. When I look at a range of items, I tend towards the lowest price. I should know by now that the cheapest item can become the most expensive item in the long run.