For those of you with yards, check out your city's department of public works for extremely discounted compost bins and rain barrels. I know that both Cambridge and Arlington have programs and you can get bins/barrels for approx half of their normal retail prices. We compost as much as possible and it's reduced our garbage to less than a bag a week, plus it's great for the garden. And the rain barrel is an easy and smart way to water your garden without using the public water supply. It just hooks right to your gutter and collects rain from the roof.

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Zipcar is offering a public transit pass and and a free one year membership to car owners who are willing to give up their car for a month and use public transportation instead. They call it the Low Car Diet!

http://www.zipcar.com/lowcardiet/join/

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This is a legit site featured on several shows included NBC's TODAY. http://www.catalogchoice.org/ Create a quick login and stop receiving paper catalogs. Yes you can recycle the catalog but that process takes energy and uses valuable resources like water. All catalogs can be accessed via the internet. On top of which NYC apt mailboxes tend to be small, who needs more junk =) ! I was getting catalogs I didn't even sign up for. Another good tip, all my vendors from phone, to cable bill to gas and electric have an option to receive an electronic bill/statement vs. paper.

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Do you guys have a method for offsetting your carbon omissions? I was testing out Terrapass http://www.terrapass.com/
and BeGreenNow http://www.begreennow.com

I live in Boston and don't own a car but I Travel a couple of times a year, so I'm trying to offset those trips. Does anyone have any experience working with the companies listed or do you prefer to choose Green Charities to donate to on your own?

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Here's a question. Where is your time better spent -- figuring out how to greenify your life, right down to paper towels and turning down the thermostat, or pushing for policy change at a broader level, like moving toward capping carbon emissions?

I know the best answer is *both*, but often I feel like rinsing out plastic bags for reuse is missing the real issues of population growth, energy, and rapid development.

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