Being Good to the Environment

by Valerie Gladstone — December 24, 2007

We often think that it would be just too complicated to help curb pollution and global warming, though Al Gore's Oscar-winning film An Inconvenient Truth made it clear that it doesn't have to be. We all need information about what to do and what not to do. Here are some suggestions. I'm sure you have more, so please contribute and we'll compile a list together.

• Try a low-flow showerhead. New models use about half the water as the standard ones.
• Take quick showers. A bath uses 50 to 70 gallons of water. A 5-minute shower uses 10 to 25. Turn off the faucet to shave and save about 10 gallons of water.
• Recycle body-wash bottles or use bar soap. If every household did this, we'd keep as much as 2.5 million pounds of plastic out of landfills.
• Buy economy-size jugs pf shampoo and conditioner and then refill smaller bottles so that you purchase less plastic.
• Use organic cotton balls. Conventionally grown cotton is assaulted with pesticides.
• Recycle empty makeup containers. Stella McCartney and Kiehl's will recycle them, and MAC gives a free lipstick for every 6 returned.
• Unplug electric tools when not in use, and air-dry your hair when possible. Hair dryers are a huge energy drain, as many of us have discovered when we blow a fuse. A daily 10-minute blow dry can send 110 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air in a year.
• Buy from charitable companies. Lancôme teams up with carbonfund.org , which supports carbon-reducing projects. Paul Mitchell funds free tree planting through American Forests. Kiss My Face donates to Gore's Alliance for Climate Control. And Aveda and Tom's of Maine give to clean water charities.
• Ask your hair colorist to do foils with recycled instead of virgin aluminum.
• Nylon puffs are made from petroleum-based products. Instead, switch to a washcloth or natural loofah to save energy and nonrenewable resources.
• Hair color, hair spray, and nail polish and remover qualify as Hazardous Household Waste and should be disposed of at a waste facility (see earth911.org for more information) rather than tossed in a garbage can after use. Check labels for the words flammable, corrosive, explosive, and toxic.