Tossing a milk jug into the recycling bin and taking shorter showers means you're making an effort.

But you probably leave the TV on when you leave the room, boil six cups of water when you only need one and stuff handfuls of plastic bags into the trash after unpacking groceries.

Take the bags back to the store next time and use them again.

Simple things can make a difference and if everyone tried to clean up their act, Americans might lose their reputation as the world's most wasteful society, dumping an average of 4.5 pounds of trash per person per day.

Remember the '70s - when recycling and saving the earth was popular and you were pushing your parents to recycle glass pop bottles? Now maybe you're hauling two kids around in an SUV and replacing a perfectly good TV with a flat screen.

At least unplug your laptop when you're not using it.

Caring about the environment is in again, helped along by $3 a gallon gas and the threat of global warming. We're willing to pay more for organic foods because of the promise that they're better for us and the environment. You can buy organic Rice Krispies, recycle your old cell phone and take a ride in a car powered by alcohol and animal fat.

Angelo Capparella hopes the green fever will last this time.

"I still remember the 1970s where this stuff was out there all the time and it all faded away and we became these hyper-consumers of the planet and that was an unfortunate shift," the Illinois State University associate professor of biology said.

This time, marketers have caught on, promoting organic clothing and earth-friendly vacuum cleaners and washers and dryers. Green products may cost us a little more and we might have to look closely to see that the pants we're trying on are made of organic cotton and the paint we choose emits fewer greenhouse gases.

"It's actually kind of complicated and hard for the consumer to figure out what the true green net benefits are," Capparella said. "You have to look at the products carefully, in a cradle-to-grave kind of way."

Consider how the product was made, packaged, transported and whether it will break down or waste away for hundreds of years in a landfill, he said. And think about what you're buying at the grocery store. Buying organics that are trucked in or exotic fruits and vegetables from half a world away defeats the purpose.

"The average food product travels more than 1,000 miles," he said. "A tremendous amount of fossil fuels go into that."

Americans have earned their reputation as the ultimate consumers, said Australian authors Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin in "True Green: 100 Everyday Ways You Can Contribute to a Healthier Planet," a National Geographic book due out April 10.

The average American family creates 3.3 tons of landfill waste every year, and it takes about 25 acres to sustain each of us. If everyone in the world lived like Americans, we would need 5.6 planets.

There's an easy way to change the impact we have, Capparella said. Simplify your life.

"It's about reducing consumption, period. No matter what you buy, it's using natural resources and energy. If we'd simplify our lives, the material needs, we'd not only reduce stress but find more time for community and family. That attitudinal change can lead to going green."

Michelle Covi, director of the Ecology Action Center in Normal, will host an open house today, showing how little changes can make a difference.

"We just want to invite people in to learn more about us and see how they can get involved, be part of the solution," she said.

The Center will host the annual Sustainable Living & Wellness Expo April 13-14 at Illinois Wesleyan University's Shirk Center. There will be a discussion of global warming, along with exhibits and demonstrations on saving energy, fuel-efficient vehicles, recycling, wellness, lawn care and an "affordable fashion show" featuring second-hand clothing.

"When you're talking about energy costs, gas prices, electricity, it's always fashionable to save money," she said.

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Coming up

Here are some earth-friendly activities:

Ecology Action Center Open House

• What: Exhibits, information, refreshments, door prizes

• When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today

• Where: 202 W. College Ave., Normal

Illinois Sustainable Living & Wellness Expo

• What: More than 100 exhibits and 30 presenters; keynote on "Climate Crisis"; fuel-efficient vehicles, affordable fashion show, children's carnival, labyrinth walks, free massages, organic foods.

• When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 13; 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. April 14

• Where: Illinois Wesleyan University Shirk Center

• Contact: Ecology Action Center, www.ecologyactioncenter.org/

Earth Day Celebration

• What: Recycling games, energy-conservation projects and other activities by the Ecology Action Center

• When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 27

• Where: Children's Discovery Museum, 101 E. Beaufort St., Normal

• Cost: Museum admission: $4 per person; children under age 2 will be admitted free

• Contact: www.childrensdiscoverymuseum.net/

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What you can do

Here are some earth-friendly ideas. Adopt a couple this week and add a couple more next week.

• Use a canvas bag instead of paper or plastic. If it's a small purchase, carry it by hand.

• Eat leftovers and buy only what you need. Every year, about $600 worth of food for the average family of four ends up in the landfill.

• Pack your lunch to cut down on fast-food containers.

• Use a coffee mug rather than cardboard or polystyrene cups. Over its life, it'll be used about 3,000 times.

• Put a lid on pots. Simmer food rather than boiling it. Don't preheat the oven.

• Keep fridge and freezer full at all times. Fill with bottles of water if there's not enough food.

• Eat less meat. Only eat sustainable, safe fish. See list at www.oceansalive.org/eat.cfm.

• Cut your shower time from 10 minutes to 5 and you'll save more than 4,200 gallons of water each year. Each minute you linger, you're using four to six gallons of water.

• Install low-flow shower heads. Reduce flow by at least 50 percent while keeping the pressure up.

• Turn off the water when you brush your teeth or shave.

• Make a low-flow toilet. Place a brick, wrapped in plastic, or a 1/2-gallon bottle, partially filled with water, in your toilet tank if you do not have a low-flow toilet.

• Only wash full loads of laundry. Run on cold settings.

• Turn off your computer and monitor. Running a computer and monitor 24 hours a day costs about $88 a year. Putting them in sleep mode could save more than 80 percent of that expense. Better yet, turn them off at the power source.

• Turn the TV off when you leave the room.

• Change a light bulb. A 20-watt compact fluorescent light gives off as much light as a 100-watt incandescent bulb, lasts about eight times longer and only uses about a quarter of the power. If every home in America changed one bulb, it would save enough energy to light seven million homes and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equal to one million cars.

• Put on a sweater. Every 1 degree you turn the thermostat down will cut about 5 percent off your heating bill. In the summer, use a fan. Almost half of the energy we use in our homes goes to heating and cooling.

• Rather than buying books and DVDs, rent or borrow them from the library. And you really don't need to spend thousands turning your basement into a home theater. Just go to a movie theater.

• Clean naturally. Use a micro-fiber cleaning cloth, warm water, natural soap and elbow grease. Use vinegar, borax, lemon juice and baking soda on tough stains.

• Shop vintage clothing stores. Clothes shopping has the highest environmental impact of all consumer activities; about 39,600 gallons of water is used to produce and transport new clothes bought by the average American household each year.

• Downsize your vehicle. Driving an SUV instead of an average new car for one year wastes more energy than leaving a TV turned on for 28 years or a refrigerator door open for six years.

• Combine trips like you did when gas reached $3 a gallon. Several short tips taken while your car engine is cold can use twice as much fuel and produce twice the amount of greenhouse gas emissions as a long trip covering the same distance when the engine's warm.

• Turn off the car if waiting more than 30 seconds and keep tires properly inflated.

• Walk or bike. Half of all car trips are less than three miles. The average family car travels about 15,000 miles a year, costing $2,500 in gasoline and generating about 5.8 tons of pollution.

• Live with a less-than-perfect lawn. Sixty to 70 percent of our treated drinking water is used to water lawns and the average irrigated home lawn uses more than 10,000 gallons of water each summer.

• Use a broom or rake to sweep away grass and leaves. Gas-powered blowers spew oily clouds of "debris dust" that are harmful when inhaled and can produce the same amount of air pollutants in an hour as driving a car from Washington, D.C., to Atlanta.

• Buy produce from a local farmer's market or organic farm.

• Print only what's necessary. The typical worker uses 10,000 sheets of paper a year, the equivalent of the pulp from a full-grown tree. Set printer and photocopier defaults to print double-sided.

• Have your name removed from junk mail lists (http://www.newdream.org/Junkmail/optout.php). Contact companies to have them remove you from mailings.

• Borrow or share seldom-used items, like camping gear or a snow blower.

• Plant a tree. A single tree will absorb 1 ton of carbon dioxide in its lifetime. Shade can reduce your air conditioning bill by 10 percent to 15 percent.

• Volunteer with a local environmental group.

• Visit Clean Up the World Web site for more ideas or share yours at www.cleanuptheworld.org.

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Helpful Websites

Find out how much your personal energy use is contributing to global warming on these Web sites:

• Click on the calculator under "What you can do" on the United States Environmental Protection Agency's site: www.epa.gov/climatechange.

• See how your lifestyle contributes to greenhouse gas emissions on Paramount Pictures' "An Inconvenient Truth" site: www.climatecrisis.net. Click on "take action."

• Figure how much land it takes to support your lifestyle by calculating your ecological footprint at: www.myfootprint.org.

• Do a home energy audit at Home Energy Saver: http://hes.lbl.gov/ . Plug in your ZIP code and basic information about your home and it will tell you the average annual utility bill for your area, along with what you can do to save.