Many of us will use a backyard fire pit to warm up a chilly night or roast marshmallows. And many of us will use balled up newspapers and magazines or even paperboard boxes as firestarters. But it's best to avoid using paper products in your fire pit. There are chemicals in printed paper products; when burned, they are released into the air. Even worse, paper products can easily turn into flying ash, which drifts into the air and can cause problems like brush fires and other fire dangers.

If you use aluminum foil for baking or cooking, the good news is that it is easily recyclable. Foil is made of 100 percent pure aluminum, and it's the same material used to make soda cans. The trick to recycling aluminum foil is to make sure it's clean and not covered in food. Ball it up, and keep adding used aluminum foil to the ball. Smaller pieces can get sorted incorrectly at the recycling facility and could end up with paper products instead. Make sure the aluminum foil ball is at least 2 inches in diameter to avoid this.

A Harvard University report on sustainability found that reducing your computer's monitor brightness level from a peak of 100 percent to just 70 percent can reduce the machine's energy consumption level by 20 percent. The more you reduce the brightness level, the more energy savings you recoup. It's easy to adjust the brightness settings: On most computers, there are buttons on the keyboard that change the levels with just a few taps. While you're making this change, enable automatic energy savings mode for your computer.