Things You Can Do

Sites with information that individuals can use at home or work to protect the environment and themselves. Realistic "how to" and "what to" lists starting with water then moving to other areas.

Water

• H2Ouse
  Learn how to conserve water at your house on this interactive website.

• Water Use Efficiency Program

• Actions You Can Take to Reduce Lead in Drinking Water

• Do's and Don'ts Around the Home
  Looking at practices around your house that might be contributing to polluted runoff.

• How to Conserve Water and Use It Effectively
  A narrow-to-wide focus on water conservation

• Fifteen Things You can Do to Make a Difference in Your Watershed
  An Earth Day site to encourage community involvement.

• Private Drinking Water Wells
  Testing the quality of a private drinking water supply

• Source Water Protection -- What Can You Do?
  Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water works with a number of partners to encourage public involvement in source water assessment and protection programs.

• What You Can do to Prevent Nonsource Pollution A handful of documents with information about preventing nonpoint source pollution. NPS pollution is caused by rainfall or snowmelt moving over and through the ground. As the runoff moves, it picks up and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, finally depositing them into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters, and even our underground sources of drinking water

• Adopt Your Watershed
  A database of active watershed groups and information on how to start a watershed group.

• Water Efficient Landscape Planner
  The Water Efficient Landscape Planner was developed to explain the advantages and principles of water efficient landscaping. (Downloadable software)

• A Citizen's Guide to Protecting Our Coasts
  Find out more about water pollution and how individuals can make a difference.

Air

• How You Can Keep the Air Cleaner
  This chart, found at the bottom of the AIRNow "What You Can Do" page contains tips for both "every day" and Ozone Action Days.

• Ozone Depletion Resource Center: Individual Actions to Protect the Ozone Layer
  Cars, home appliances, and reporting violations.

• 10 Indoor Air Hazards to Watch For
  In homes across America, the quality of indoor air can be worse than outdoor air.

• Green Landscaping with Native Plants

• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
  Source reduction, often called waste prevention, means consuming and throwing away less.

• Your Car and Clean Air: What YOU Can Do to Reduce Pollution
  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has prepared this fact sheet to answer some of the most common questions about reducing emissions from private vehicles.

• Clear Your Home of Asthma Triggers
  Asthma may be triggered by allergens and irritants that are common in homes.

• Planning Environmentally Aware Events
  The key to planning such an environmentally aware meeting or event is to set environmental priorities early in event planning and incorporate them into as many facets of the event as possible.

• Ten Tips to Protect Children from Pesticide and Lead Poisonings around the Home
  (Also available in a Spanish Version)

• Protect Your Family and Yourself from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
  The "Prevention is the Key to Avoiding Carbon Monoxide Poisoning" section contains a list of suggestions- DOs and DON'Ts.

• Using Insect Repellents Safely

• Action Steps for Sun Protection
  While some exposure to sunlight can be enjoyable, too much can be dangerous. Overexposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation in sunlight can result in a painful sunburn. It can also lead to more serious health effects, including skin cancer, premature aging of the skin, and other skin disorders; cataracts and other eye damage; and immune system suppression.

• Sunwise School Program for Kids
  Children are particularly at risk of overexposure, since most of the average person's lifetime exposure occurs before the age of 18.

Waste

• Hazardous Waste Disposal
  Household information that includes prevention, smart shopping, homemade remedies, reusing, recycling, and composting.

• Guidelines for Safe Disposal
  Guide to household waste disposal. Part of the household hazardous waste disposal site.

• The Stored Waste Abatement Program, or SWAP
  A program that links people with usable but unwanted products with others who would use those products.

• The Consumer's Handbook for Reducing Solid Waste
  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.

• Tips for Reducing Solid Waste
  Part of the Consumer Handbook for Reducing Solid Waste.

• Waste Not, Want Not: Feeding the Hungry and Reducing Solid Waste Through Food Recovery
  In the United States, we not only produce an abundance of food, we waste an enormous amount of it. More than one quarter of America's food, or about 96 billion pounds of food a year, goes to waste--in fields, commercial kitchens, manufacturing plants, markets, schools, and restaurants. While not all of this excess food is edible, much of it is and could be going to those who need it.

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