At Home and In the Garden
Tips for home safety, avoiding potential risks, and preventing pollution
by recycling and conserving water and energy.
Ensuring Safe Drinking Water
Actions
You Can Take to Reduce Lead In Drinking Water - This publication
offers information and solutions to many common questions surrounding
lead in your drinking water.
Cleaner Water
through Conservation - Explains the relationship between
the quantity of water and its quality and discusses how developing water-use
efficiency programs can help states and local communities achieve cleaner
water through conserving water.
Drinking Water
- The home page for the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water.
Drinking Water and
Health: What you need to know - This EPA publication (EPA 816-K-99-001)
answers many basic questions about drinking water systems.
Drinking Water Contaminants
- EPA sets standards for approximately 90 contaminants in drinking water.
This Web site contains more detailed information on specific contaminants.
Local Drinking
Water Information - This page gives consumers an easy way
to find information about their drinking water supplier, their sources
of drinking water, and what their state drinking water program is doing.
Private Drinking
Water Wells - Learn how to test and protect your private
well water.
Water on Tap
- How safe is my drinking water? Where does my drinking water come from,
and how does it get to my home? What can I do to help protect my drinking
water? This publication examines these questions and offers information
on protecting your drinking water.
Improving Indoor Air Quality
Asbestos
in Your Home - This online pamphlet will help you understand
asbestos: what it is, its health effects, where it is in your home, and
what to do about it.
Indoor Air
Quality in Homes/Residences - Indoor pollution sources that
release gases or particles into the air are the primary cause of indoor
air quality problems in homes. Find out about these sources and how to
protect you and your family.
Flood Cleanup
and Preserving Indoor Air Quality - This fact sheet addresses
the problems caused by floods that affect indoor air quality such as viruses,
bacteria, and mold.
Reduce
Risks of Radon : Test Your Home - This document describes
how to test for radon, dispels common myths, and provides state contacts
for testing.
Secondhand
Smoke - This site discusses the health risks to children
and adults from secondhand smoke with particular regard to immediate health
effects with links to publications.
Protect Your
Family and Yourself from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning - Knowing
the symptoms of Carbon Monoxide poisoning and immediate first aid techniques
provided in this document can save your life or the lives of your family.
Safe Use of Toxins/Pesticides
What is a Pesticide?
- This document explains what is and what is not a pesticide.
What
are Biopesticides? - Different from conventional pesticides,
biopesticides are a group of pesticides that are sometimes controversial
and make their way into the media. This web page helps to educate the
public on this class of pesticides.
National Pesticide
Information Center (NPIC) 
- This site provides a wide variety of pesticide-related information as
well as a toll-free number for further information.
Ten Tips to Protect
Children from Pesticide and Lead Poisonings around the Home -
These simple steps can help you save children from environmental hazards
around the home.
* Spanish
Version
Reducing Your Exposure
Lead and Indoor Air
Quality - Humans are exposed to lead in many ways; through
air, drinking water, food, contaminated soil, deteriorating paint, and
dust. This publication explains the dangers from lead, suggesting ways
to reduce your exposure.
Ultraviolet Index
: An Overview - Do you know that a few simple precautions can
help protect you and your children from skin cancer and serious eye injury?
Pollution Prevention
Household
Waste Management - This program can be used online to find
reliable information about reducing the waste consumers generate and dealing
with hazardous wastes in the home.
Recycling
- This document provides an overview of recycling including what is in
our trash and steps you can take to recycle at home.
Recycling Hotline: Earth
911
- By simply typing in your zip code, the US Environmental/Recycling Hotline
helps you locate recycling centers in your community "for all types
of recyclables."
The
Consumer's Handbook for Reducing Solid Waste - This booklet
describes how people can help solve a growing problem...garbage! Individual
consumers can help alleviate America's mounting trash problem by making
environmentally aware decisions about everyday things like shopping and
caring for the lawn.
How to Conserve
Water and Use It Effectively - This document explores some
efforts to conserve water such as low-flow toilets and showerheads, aerators
and pressure reduction.
Where
Can I Take My Computer? - EPA's Product Stewardship website has
information on opportunities for donating and recycling computers and
other electronics.
Used Oil Management
Program - Provides information about changing motor oil, recycling
used oil, and changing and recycling used oil filters.
Buying and Maintaining an Environmentally Friendly House
Energy
Efficient Homes and Heating and Cooling Systems - This resource
discusses home products such as air conditioners, furnaces, and thermostats,
and illustrates the savings for homeowners who buy Energy Star products.
Home
Buyer's and Seller's Guide to Radon - This resource provides
further information for the testing and reduction of radon hazards in
the home.
How to Buy an Energy
Efficient Home - This document describes the Energy Star
Homes Program and how you can reduce pollution by saving energy.
Residential
Energy Efficiency - This program shows effective ways to
reduce home energy consumption and allows users to calculate how much
they will save by making their homes more energy efficient.
EPA's Clean Energy
Site - Clean energy is energy derived from highly efficient, clean
technologies, including renewable, "green" power, and combined
heat and power. The EPA’s Clean Energy Programs are designed to improve
the national foundation of information on Clean Energy by creating networks
between the public and private sector, providing technical assistance,
and offering recognition of environmental leaders that adopt Clean Energy
practices.
Lawn Care
Your
Yard and Clean Air - This document provides tips on how you
can prevent pollution in your own backyard by adopting practices that
will help protect the environment now and in the future.
Green Landscaping with
Native Plants - This site provides a wizard that answers
commonly asked questions about landscaping with native wild flowers and
grasses in the Great Lakes region.
The Hidden Hazards of Backyard Burning (PDF, 2 pp., 272 KB) - This EPA
publication (EPA 530-F-03-012) informs citizens of the health hazards
of burning household waste in burn barrels
and open piles and providing alternatives to burning. Lawn
Equipment - Discusses the benefits of winterizing your lawn
equipment.
Natural Landscaping
- Online publication explaining natural landscaping ideas.
Greenscaping
- EPA's GreenScapes Program can show you how to reduce the environmental
impacts of landscaping your lawn and property by grasscycling, mulching,
and composting.
Composting
- Discusses what composting is, what compost can be used for, and other
related topics.
The
Natural Landscaping Alternative: An Annotated Slide Collection - Native plants
provide a beautiful, hardy, drought resistant, low maintenance landscape
while benefiting the environment. This Annotated Slide Collection contains
fifty slides selected for their ability to define natural landscaping
and explain its benefits, to illustrate applications of natural landscaping,
and to demonstrate installation and management techniques
Additional Concerned Citizens Web Resources
Water | Prevention,
Pesticides & Toxics | Pesticides
| Solid Waste | Chemical
Emergency | Superfund
| Global
Warming |
Region 1: New England States | Region
2: NJ, NY, PR, VI | Region
6: AR, LA, NM, OK, TX | Region
8: Northern/Mountain States
|
