Reduce, Reuse, and recycle your way to a good carbon footprint. An average American produces four pounds of trash and uses 80-100 gallons of water per day.  This affects the environment by needing to create more landfills and using up too much water which leads to water pollution. These four simple everyday routines can help you lower those numbers:

1. Compost: Starting a compost pile is a good way to food recycle. Just from gathering your banana peels  and cut greens. You’ll be halfway there to richening your soil the right way.This will help plants get the extra nutrients they need and lighten your garbage bags at the same time.

1. Lessein water: Turn off water while brushing your teeth, shaving, and scrubbing your hair before rinsing it out. Water usage is something Americans don’t take very seriously because the world is made up of  71% water and they don’t think the Earth can run out. According to balance.com water eventually returns to Earth through the water cycle, but it’s not always returned to the same spot, or in the same quantity and quality.

1. Paper not plastic: Switching to paper instead of plastic is a very simple way to reduce your plastic waste. Plastic is not  a decomposable and very hard to get rid of unlike paper. Bringing your own cloth grocery bags to the store would work for this as well.

1. Recycling bin: By the end of an average day, we would have probably eaten the last of the cereal leaving an empty box, drank a few water bottles and used some type of canned food. Instead of throwing these objects out, they’re all recyclable. When these items are not recycled they just add space to landfills and never get reused.