What One Person Can Do: Top 10 Tips for Cleaner Air and a Healthier Planet

Keep in mind that your choices in two areas – energy use and transportation – will determine your personal contribution to the problems of air pollution and climate change. Changing these choices will help address these problems!

1. Drive less: Walk, bike, or take the bus or train instead of driving solo whenever you can.
2. When you do drive: combine car trips, carpool, keep your car tuned up, keep your tire pressures up, and don’t top off your tank at the gas station. If you are looking to buy a new car, see the benefits of Clean-Air Cars. If you’re looking to live car-lite, try car-sharing services like Zipcar.
3. Use less electricity through energy-efficient products and habits as well as thinking about installing solar panels or a passive solar water heater.
4. Use less toxic products, such as for household cleaning, painting, washing clothes, or dealing with pests or weeds.
5. Shop local to reduce energy use and pollution from transportation of products.
       
6. Shop sustainable to consider product lifecycle: production, use, and disposal.
7. Save your fireplace or wood stove for special occasions (see Cleaner Fireplace Burning for tips).
8. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
9. Use a broom instead of a leaf blower and if you use a landscaping service, try to make sure it follows green practices.
10. Learn more and share what you learn. See other pages on this website: Today’s Air Quality,  Pollutants and Our Health, Climate Change.  Know a teacher?  Tell them about our Clean Air Ambassadors program. Know someone with a diesel engine? Tell them about our Clean Air Grants program.