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It's easy being green

Feel like you're weighing down the planet? Here are five easy ways to live a more eco-friendly life. — tbt*

Ditch your lighter. Choose cardboard book matches (made from recycled cardboard) over a plastic butane lighter or a box of wooden matches (made from trees). More than 1.5-billion lighters end up in landfills or incinerators annually. If all the cigarettes smoked every day around the world were lighted with cardboard matches instead of wood matches, 5.5-million trees would be saved annually.

Use fewer paper napkins. No need to grab a huge stack when you'll use only one or two. Each American uses an average of 2,200 standard two-ply napkins each year, or just over six per day. Using one fewer napkin per day would keep more than 1-billion pounds of napkins out of landfills.

Buy movie and event tickets online. Print them at home on plain copy paper, which is easier to recycle than the paperboard used for most tickets. About 1.4-billion movie tickets are sold annually in the U.S., and almost every one gets thrown away.

Stop stealing office supplies. For every 100,000 paper clips produced, only 20,000 are used to hold paper together. If one of every four workers reused paper clips, it would save more than $1-million. For that matter, paper accounts for 39 pounds of every 100 pounds of trash we throw away. The average school throws out 38 tons of paper annually, or more than 8-million sheets. The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper each year.

Switch to recycled toilet tissue. If every household replaced one 12-pack of regular bathroom tissue with a recycled variety, it would save almost 5-million trees and enough paper waste to fill 17,000 garbage trucks.

Source: The Green Book: The Everyday Guide to Saving the Planet One Simple Step at a Time, by Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas M. Kostigen (Three Rivers Press, $12.95).

Left to right: The Bad Boy, The Old Standby, The Riddler

Left to right: The Science Geek, The Fashionplate, The Hipster

Here's the guilt: Americans throw away 38-billion plastic water bottles annually, made with more than 1.5-million barrels of petroleum.

Here's the directive: Stop using throwaway water bottles.

Here's the challenge: Find something that's chic, hip and lightweight. Something you'll actually want to use. Something that can be washed, that doesn't spill or leak, and that doesn't look like a sippy cup or a leftover from your last camping trip or sweaty visit to the gym.

At Fashion Week in New York City earlier this month, models showing off the spring collections carried water bottles designed by Sigg, a Swiss company, filled with tap water. (See them at www.mysigg.com, where you can mix and match colors, styles and tops to create your own bottle.)

The $9-billion-a-year bottled-water industry was born out of the notion that the public water supply had been trashed, polluted, so we had to drink bottled water from safe, natural sources (those mountain streams and springs that may have been more hype than reality). But now that same healthy-choice industry is creating trash, i.e., billions of plastic bottles.

Now, people who are concerned about what they put in their bodies — clean water — are worrying about what's going on outside their bodies: global warming, pollution, overflowing landfills, profligate use of limited fossil fuels to import and ship plastic bottles of water.

Hence the interest in reusable bottles and in going back to good old tap water. We looked around, on store shelves and online, to see what's available as a substitute for single-use bottles. Take a sip — er, a look — at some of the choices you have as you seek the right blend of function and fashion.

One tip: Any bottle you use repeatedly needs to be washed between uses with hot water and soap. Bacteria from saliva and hands can thrive, especially when bottles stand at room temperature or in the sun or a hot car.

THE BAD BOY: Sigg's Red Alert design, aluminum with skull and crossbones, comes in several cap choices. This size (33 ounces) may not fit your car cup holder, and the bottle isn't dishwasher friendly. $19.99 at www.mysigg.com.

THE FASHIONPLATE: Sigg's 20-ounce Sunray design from Sigg is the leader of the style pack. It's made of aluminum lined with food-grade stove enamel, holds 20 ounces and fits in a car cup holder, though it's not dishwasher safe. It's $18.99, not cheap, but if you're spending $1 or so for a plastic bottle of water, you'll make this back in two weeks or less.

THE HIPSTER: The N-Gen bottle comes in platinum, orange, pink and blue for $10.25 at www.nalgene-outdoor.com. The cap loop is handy for carrying or clipping it to a backpack. The 750-milliter bottle ($9.95) is lightweight but wide and feels more like a sports bottle or Thermos than a bottle-about-town. It didn't fit in a car cup holder. However, hip is in the eye of the beholder: These are said to be "badges of cool for young hipsters," the New York Times reports.

THE OLD STANDBY: Who says an insulated polycarbonate tumbler can't get some style points? Double-walled Tervis Tumblers are available in 12-, 16-, 17- and 24-ounce versions, $9.50-$15 each. Add a travel lid and plastic straw for $2. You can personalize it with dozens of emblems. Order at www.tervis.com, or buy at many local stores including Beall's and Bed Bath and Beyond.

THE SCIENCE GEEK: No wasted petroleum here. This bottle, made from cornstarch polymer, includes its own filter, and is reusable up to 90 times, the manufacturer says. It biodegrades in 80 days. Downsides? It's hand-wash only, and the clear plastic cap could get lost. It holds 16.9 ouncesand costs $7.89. www.newwaveenrivo.com.

THE RIDDLER: From Doctor's Holistic-Market (www.holistic-physician.com), this 1-liter bottle is a two-handed engineering challenge to use. Flip up the plastic cap that protects the bottle top, then hold the grooved edge of the big cap in place while you turn the smaller drinking cap. The clear cap will probably hit you in the nose while you're drinking. This one's too big for a car cup holder. It's $3.89.