By Nicolas D'Alleva

Sure there are some obvious changes like turning off the lights and recycles your plastics and paper, but there are countless other ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Making green decisions when shopping and performing daily activities is the way to help the environment. There are many simple tasks that can be changed to suite an environmentally friendly lifestyle. Here are some ways that we like to reduce our carbon footprints.

• Use vegetable-based products. Many cleaning products are now available in a biodegradable form. You're going to need to clean your house or apartment at some point, so you might as well use a product that is environmentally friendly.
• Make a compost pile. Leaves, old food and dirt go great together to help your garden. It's a natural way to keep your soil fresh and fertile.
• Consider installing water barrels to collect water when it rains. It's a nice way to save money if you need to water your grass or garden. Why not use rain water rather than paying for it?
• Print on both sides of the page. If you have a ten page article, print it on only five sheets of paper. If you do this for as many printing objects as you can, you'll definitely be saving paper and money.
• At work, send email notices rather than paper ones. Also save envelopes, folders and other supplies that have not been ruined with use.
• Instead of using the office coffee and water cups, you should try out reusable water bottles and use your own coffee mug. They will cost you a few bucks, but you're making a difference with the environment. At work, we love to enforce this by limiting the number of disposable cups at the office. Try to get everyone involved.
• Instead of driving everywhere, consider riding a bike or walking. Mass transportation is also a great way to reduce your footprint. Trains, buses and subways are also inexpensive compared to the gas you'd be using in your car.
• If you're looking for a new car, do some research on hybrid or electric vehicles. If you're not interested in one of these, at least try to purchase a more efficient car than you previously had.
• Avoid driving during rush hour. Sometimes it is unavoidable, but if you can drive during non-peak hours, you will save gas and will pollute less. Also, don't warm up your car before driving. This wastes gas and driving is the best way to warm up your car anyway.
• Instead of paper towels, use a cloth towel that is washable. There's no need to throw away paper if you have access to a reusable product.

This post has been provided by Nicolas D'Alleva. Nicolas is the owner of Specialty Answering Service, a Houston answering service to support Texas businesses. Specialty provides bilingual answering service as well as strictly English answering service support.

This post has been syndicated by Nathan Brown, targeted recruiter for Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage's jobs in green building .