Green Living: Green Living Guides

Featured Green Living Guides

What to Do About E-Waste

Keep your computers, cell phones and other used electronics out of landfills.

Eat Local

Find out what's growing on a farm near you and get recipes from chefs across the country who specialize in local, seasonal foods.

Cooking Sustainable Seafood

Recipes help you take the guesswork out of serving a healthy, feel-good seafood meal.

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How to Fight Global Warming
Take steps to reduce your energy use, improve efficiency and help end global warming

Guide

The biggest cause of global warming is the carbon dioxide released when fossil fuels are burned for energy. So when you save energy, you fight global warming and save money, too. Here are some easy steps that you can take to help make a difference.

How to Reduce Your Energy Consumption
Tips for conserving electricity and cutting your energy costs

Guide

Energy efficiency and renewable energy represent the fastest, cleanest and least expensive ways to reduce our electricity use -- and our dependence on oil. Here, some tips on doing just that, for both individuals and businesses -- along with links to other resources that will help you conserve even more.

Efficient Appliances Save Energy -- and Money
Consumers get lower utility bills, and we all get a cleaner environment.

Guide

Energy efficient appliances are good for consumers and the environment. They won't solve our energy problems by themselves, but there are many reasons why they are a step in the right direction.

The Benefits of Organic Food
Food grown without intensive use of synthetic chemicals is better for the health of people and the environment

Overview

In recent years, many farmers across the United States have abandoned synthetic pesticides, fertilizers and hormones in favor of organic growing methods. The result is healthy, naturally grown food that’s better for our health and the environment.

A Shopper's Guide to Home Tissue Products
Shop smart. Save forests.

Guide

Help save forests by choosing environmentally preferable alternatives.

Water Quality at U.S. Beaches
How to find out whether state and local authorities test for beach pollution, and what they do if they find it.

Guide

Wondering how clean the water is at your favorite vacation spot? Finding an answer can be tricky. Beach testing and closing/health advisory practices vary from beach to beach and state to state. Even when states and localities perform tests, they don't always notify the public or close beaches when bacteria levels in the water exceed health standards. Learn how you can try to check the safety of your favorite beach before you head out for a swim.

Green Eating Guide
Tips for making healthy food choices for you and the planet

Guide

From farm to fork, growing our food, processing it and transporting it all use tremendous amounts of energy, water and chemicals. By making just a few small changes in our eating and buying habits, we can greatly reduce this impact. When we eat green, we help the environment by reducing global warming pollution -- and help ourselves by eating fresh and healthy food.

Sustainable Seafood Guide
How to choose delicious seafood that’s healthy for you and the environment

Guide

Eating fish can be a smart choice. It's a lean protein with great health benefits. But sometimes fish can be bad for you, and sometimes it's bad for the environment. When you're at the store or ordering in a restaurant, how do you know which seafood to choose? We’ve got advice that tells you what's OK and what to avoid

NRDC's Green Holiday Guide

Guide

Here are NRDC's recommendations for making this season earth-friendly.

Great Green Gift Guide
Ideas for easy-on-the-planet presents that go way beyond the basics

Guide

Buy a national parks pass. Send a kid to camp. Give a weekly organic food gift box or a home for bats. This page is chock full of tips from NRDC's own attorneys, scientists and policy analysts for giving easy-on-the-planet presents that go way beyond the basics.

Lowering the Cost of Play
Improving Energy Efficiency of Video Game Consoles

Issue Paper

Today, more than 40 percent of all homes in the United States contain at least one video game console. Recognizing that all that gaming could add up to serious demand for electricity, NRDC and Ecos Consulting performed the first ever comprehensive study on the energy use of video game consoles. In this November 2008 issue paper, NRDC provides recommendations for users, video game console manufacturers, component suppliers and the software companies that design games for improving the efficiency of video game consoles already in homes as well as future generations of machines yet to hit the shelves.

Buying Carbon Offsets: What You Need to Know
When combined with other energy-saving efforts, carbon offsets can help you green your home, office and travel.

Guide

When combined with other personal energy-saving efforts, carbon offsets can help you green your home, office and travel. But the key is to shrink your own carbon output first.

Bottled Water

FAQ

Answers to questions including: Is bottled water safer than tap water? How can I find out where my bottled water comes from? If I drink tap water should I use a filter and what types of filters are most effective?

Know the Forest and the Trees: A Consumer's Guide to Buying Wood

Overview

Whether you are building a deck or just buying a nightstand, your purchase can have an impact on forests and people thousands of miles away. Your money could support a sustainable community initiative on the rainforest's edge--or it could contribute to continued impoverishment of families in Latin America or deforestation in Southeast Asia.

What to Do About E-Waste
A helpful how-to guide for keeping your computers, cell phones and other used electronics out of landfills.

Guide

A helpful how-to guide for keeping your computers, cell phones and other used electronics out of landfills.

Recycling 101

Guide

A refresher course in the basics, plus tips to take your recycling game to the next level.

Safe Ways to Control Pests Around Your Home
These alternatives to toxic pesticides will protect the health of your household, while keeping insects, rodents and other pests at bay.

Guide

These alternatives to toxic pesticides will protect the health of your household, while keeping insects, rodents and other pests at bay.

Seven Tips for Creating Eco-Fabulous Interiors

Guide

These green design tips will help you turn any space into a fabulous, eco-friendly room.

You Can Beat City Hall - Community Action Tips

Guide

These community-action tips will get you started in fighting the introduction of polluters into your neighborhood.

Seafood Specials: Great Recipes that Help Save Oceans
Recipes from NRDC's home cooks and a few of our chef friends help you take the guesswork out of serving a healthy, feel-good seafood meal.

Guide

Recipes from NRDC's home cooks and a few of our chef friends help you take the guesswork out of serving a healthy, feel-good seafood meal.

Reforming the Paper Industry

Guide

The pulp and paper industry is one of the most environmentally damaging industries in the world. Find out how you, through individual purchases or through your business, can help transform this bad actor into a more sustainable industry.

The Paper Business, Present and Future

Index

This index of information on paper and forestry shows where there's room for improvement, and why there's hope ahead.

Mercury Contamination in Fish: A Guide to Staying Healthy and Fighting Back

Guide

Power plants and chemical facilities are the main sources of mercury pollution, but this hazardous chemical makes its way into our homes and bodies in fish. This guide provides information about the health effects of mercury exposure, shows where it's coming from, offers tips for eating fish more safely and highlights opportunities to help stop mercury pollution.

New York City's Recycling Program

Guide

A guide to recycling in New York City.

Consumer Guide to Water Filters
How to find the right water filter for your home.

Guide

Some filters aim to produce clearer, better-tasting water, while others work to remove contaminants that could affect your health. This guide will help you determine what type of filter might be right for your home.

Tap Water Quality and Safety
Questions and answers based on NRDC's report grading the quality of drinking water in U.S. cities.

FAQ

Answers to questions including: How can I find out about the quality of my tap water? What can I do to protect the drinking water in my town? What filter will best protect my family from getting sick?

Good Wood: How Forest Certification Helps the Environment

FAQ

Forest certification is a seal of approval for wood and paper products, allowing consumers to use their buying power for good.

Environmentalism, Then and Now
The times have changed, and NRDC and the environmental movement have changed with them.

Photo Album

How has the face of environmentalism changed over NRDC's thirty-plus years defending the environment? A group of NRDC staffers reflect back on early days at NRDC, and compare yesterday and today.

Guide to Greener Living

Guide

You've been meaning to do it -- start a compost pile, buy recycled paper, trade in that gas-guzzler for a cleaner, more fuel-efficient model -- but you've never quite gotten around to it. Well, there's no better time than the present to turn your environmental ideals into environmental action. So we've compiled some tips to help get you started.

Advanced Ways to Clean Up Our Water

Guide

Runoff from lawns, sidewalks, roads and driveways is a major contributor to surface water pollution. Advanced ways to help reduce the flow of polluted runoff include installing a water storage cistern, rain garden or vegetated roof.

How to Clean Up Our Water
Twelve simple ways you can help stem the tide of polluted runoff.

Guide

Sewage overflows and runoff from farms and city streets close thousands of miles of beaches each year and poison our food supply and drinking water. The good news is that there are many things you can do to help. Here are 12 simple actions to help stem the tide of polluted runoff -- and clean up and conserve our waters.

Caviar Emptor
With this campaign, NRDC and our partners aim to make buyers aware that trade in caviar has pushed several species of sturgeon to the brink of extinction.

News

Sturgeon have been swimming the world's waters since dinosaurs walked the earth. But unrelenting overfishing aimed at harvesting caviar, together with pollution and habitat destruction, have driven many of the world's 27 species of sturgeon to the brink of extinction. To reverse these declines, NRDC and others have launched a campaign to reduce demand for caviar and protect these ancient fish.

How to Protect Your Children from Environmental Risks
Pollution-related illnesses may be on the rise, but there are things parents can do.

Guide

Pollution-related illnesses are on the rise, increasing concerns about the role environmental toxins might play in diseases, especially those in children. Asthma rates tripled in the 1980s and childhood cancer rates have increased 10 percent over the last 20 years. There are steps you can take to protect your children from the five worst environmental threats to their health: lead, air pollution, pesticides, environmental tobacco smoke, and drinking water contamination.