Reuse

I'll admit it, I love my clothes line ... when it's warm out. But, in the middle of winter when the high temperature for the day stays below freezing heading outside to hang wet jeans on the line is a bit tough. Yes, I could set up an inside clothes line or rack. But I've found another option, I can use my clothes dryer to heat and humidify the house.

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.

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.

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?