Kitchen
Alamy
If you read the title of this article and groaned, don't worry: We're not going to tell you to embark on a five-figure eco-friendly kitchen renovation or encourage you to try baking your potatoes in the sun. No doubt you've already heard some statistic like this: If every home in the U.S. replaced just one incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent, we would keep as much global warming pollution out of the air each year as if 800,000 cars suddenly disappeared. "There are many steps we can each personally take to make a healthier and safer environment for ourselves and our families," says Bob Schildgen, a resident green-living expert at the Sierra Club and author of Sierra magazine's "Hey, Mr. Green" column. Those steps, from simple, one-time fixes to subtle changes in our routines, can add up to big impacts. And because so many of our consumption habits center around how we buy and prepare food, there's no better place to start than in the kitchen.