Doing our part to save the planet

A few weeks ago, I was reading Good Magazine and came across an article titled "Number Crunching", featuring a series of photos by photographer Chris Jordan. Here's one of the pictures from the series:

(photo from chrisjordan.com)

The picture shows 60,000 plastic bags, the number used in the US every 5 seconds! There is another picture in the series showing 2 million plastic bottles, the number used in the US every 5 minutes! These numbers are just insane...

FYI - here's a great article from Fast Company about the bottled water industry: link

Here's what Patty and I are doing to try to help out:

• bought a nylon reusable bag for our groceries
• whenever possible, we drink filtered water (from the fridge) instead of bottled water
• installed desert landscaping to minimize water use -> grass requires a ton of water to maintain
• installed solar landscaping lights
  
• replaced about half the bulbs in our house with CFLs
• replace the air filter for our air conditioning on a regular basis
• installed ceiling fans and raised the setting on our AC to 87 degrees (I know that sounds pretty warm, but with the fans it's comfortable)
• purchased a front-loading washing machine -> front-loaders use about 40-60% less water and 30-50% less electricity compared to regular washers; they also use about 75% less detergent
  
• recycle whenever possible
• maintain the air pressure in our cars -> proper pressure maximizes the mileage of your vehicle and tires plus it's safer

What are you doing? We'd love to hear your ideas...