Five Easy Ways To Live Green From HGTV

1. Looking for an excuse to replace that bulky computer monitor in the home office? An LCD flat panel model uses as little as a third of the electricity of conventional tube-based models, saving you on your power bill the equivalent of leaving a 50-watt bulb on all year.

When buying large-screen TVs, the savings comes from LCDs and rear-projection models, which use less than half the energy of plasma TVs.

2. You knew grilling was a healthy way to cook vittles, but did you know it was good for the air? Outdoor grills take less energy than electric kitchen stoves. They also keep heat out of the house, lowering air conditioning costs.

Stick with grills that use propane or natural gas; they emit 5.6 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere per hour while a charcoal grill belches 11 pounds of the air-polluting compound for the same.

One more thing: dine on reusable plates made from bamboo, not disposable paper ones. The trees will thank you.

3. If you feel a little woozy after painting the bedroom with latex-based enamel, choose a product low in volatile organic compounds (VOCs) instead. New designer colors and improved quality make these safer paints equivalent to standard ones and they benefit your health as well as the planet’s.

If you don't mind a paint fume buzz, try recycled paints. Filtered, reprocessed latex keeps harmful chemicals out of the landfill and at $5 to $7.50 a gallon, they’re a bargain. Colors and finishes are sometimes limited, though..

4. Skip the pesticides and use nature's method of bug-eradication: other animals. Install birdhouses to shelter feathered friends who dine on pesky beetles and grubs. Put out egg cases of Green Lacewings or Praying Mantises (less than $15, www.mastergardening.com) and they’ll gobble up aphids. Bats, and toads will dine on mosquitoes; attract them with bat houses ($25) and toad houses you can make yourself by overturning flower pots.

5. Organic food tastes better and it’s kinder to the earth. Thirty percent of the fossil fuel used on farms goes into the making of fertilizers.

Get greener by buying items grown or produced within 100 miles and you’ll reduce the amount of diesel fuel needed to ship food. You can get fresher food and help small-scale agriculture by shopping at neighborhood farmers’ markets.

Get more of these HGTV Green Ideas by clicking here.