When you buy your first compact fluorescent light bulb with the soon-to-be-familiar coil shape it will give off the same amount of light as your old one, while using only a quarter the power. If every household in the United States replaced its next burnt-out light bulb with a CFL more than 13 billion pounds of CO2 emissions would be prevented – that’s the equivalent of taking 1.2 million cars off the road for an entire year.

If each household in the United States changed from regular toilet paper to a 100 percent recycled, non-chlorine-bleached brand like Seventh Generation that would save 170,317 tons of greenhouse gas emissions for each twelve-pack used. The same is true for paper towels. One three-pack of towels per home would save 63,000 tons. The switch of just one 500-pack of paper napkins would stop the release of 120,930 tons.

If only half the households in the United States turned down their water heaters by just 10 degrees, the atmosphere would be spared 239 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.
 

Most paper or plastic bags do not get recycled, even when they do they eventually get discarded somewhere then a new one has to be manufactured, shipped, and stored. It all takes energy – it all creates CO2 emissions. When you are asked about paper or plastic at the supermarket, the real answer is reusable shopping bags.