Everyone's objective at present shoul be to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Not all of us will have the means to accomplish this. Unfortunately, it costs a bit to save a lot in his instance.

You are not going to make any money by separating your garbage into kitchen waste, plastic, paper, glass and metals. But you are going to contribute to reducing the amount of space required in your local landfill to accommodate your garbage. You are probably going to have to pay a recycler to come and take away the separated garbage and he will make a bit on selling the recycled product. All you gain at this level is a clearer conscience. Do a whole lot more, and then you will begin to feel the difference.

There are many small things you can do to start the ball rolling and once you have gained a bit of momentum, you will quickly see how it all comes back to you.

1. At present we cannot buy renewable energy from providers in South Africa. We can however buy carbon credits or plant trees to offset our impact on the environment through consuming energy.

2. Build a timber frame house and contribute to carbon dioxide savings. No cement or bricks which take huge amounts of energy to manufacture and generate huge amounts of pollution.

3. Grow vegetables at home and see exactly what goes into your food. Eliminate pesticides and poisons and eat healthy and tasty food that is good for you. Remove some lawn and convert it into vegetable patch so that the water is piut to good use. See Home Agriculture

4. Begin to explore all the environmentally friendly resources you can. See Links.

5. Fresh air and natural light are important to your physical wellbeing. Ensure that air flows into and out of your home naturally. Investigate the positioning of furniture and planst to allow more natural light into your home. Skylights do both of these things at once.

5. Reduce, re-use and recycle.

6. Re-use your packaging for mailing your own parcels. Similarly, use your supermarket bags as small bin liners for the toxic waste disposal.

7. If you can, organise a lift club to work or cycle

8. Take the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

9. Buy local produce rather than imported produce

10. Use a compost bin in your garden for your bio waste

11. Install solar panels to heat some of your hot water

12. Covert your car fuel to renewable bio-diesel or use bio-ethanol

13. Don't print off emails or if you must, select the information that is needed from a number of emails and paste it all onto a single page and print once only using ecofont.

14. If you need to distribute documents, send them in PDF so that the users can rad them on screen and print only the pages they really need.

15. Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, Printers and Faxes. Select default printer and Printing Preferences. Select Page Setup and click the page layout setting which prints two pages per sheet. You have just cut your paper and ink consumption by 50%.

16. Sell unwanted items on E-bay or Bidorbuy or in your local free ads paper

17. Buy a rain barrel or rain harvester, to recycle your rain water for the garden

18. Use recycled ink jet toner cartridges in your computer printers

19. Download the free ecofont

20. Shower instead of bathing - you save half the water and you coud save even more if you have a low flow shower head.

21. Turn off your taps properly, and replace tap washers when necessary - it should be about once every four years.

22. Insulate your house - ensure there are no draughts, seal doors and windows, insulate your ceiling space, double-glazing is the optimum.

23. If building a house, use Eco-cement if it is available

24. Lower your home and office heater temperature by one degree or rasie your airconditioner temperature by one degree

25. Consider using gas to heat your home and for cooking

26. Upgrade your home appliances to those with an AAA Energy rating

27. Buy a wind generator.

28. Buy energy efficient light bulbs (CFLs)

29. Recycle your old cell phone with cellforcashsa

30. Walk more!

31. Get your name taken off mailing lists, no more junk mail

32. Get a house mate - it reduces your waste by 27%

33. Recycle your electronic items with e-waste

34. Plant more trees in your garden

35. Build a bird table for your home or school