If you have a professional housekeeping service clean your home, you may want to find out about its vacuuming habits. Many companies use their own equipment, bringing it from house to house. The problem? Cross contamination between houses -- things like pet dander, mold and mildew can transfer from another house to yours. The simple solution is to insist the cleaning company use your own vacuum inside your home. While you're at it, you can insist it uses eco-friendly cleaners that you provide, too. Some franchises prohibit the use of unapproved cleaning products, so you may be better suited working with a local service company.

Light-emitting diode (LED) lightbulbs are all the rage when it comes to lighting. But shopping for LED bulbs can lead to unexpected surprises when you turn on the bulb for the first time; the light emitted can feel cold, clinical and not warm at all. When shopping for LED bulbs, the key words to search for on the packaging are "warm white" or "soft white." But more importantly, look for kelvin ratings -- a metric to measure color temperature. LED bulbs that are 3,000 kelvins or fewer cast a yellow light; any higher, and it'll likely be a cooler, bright white light.

What should you do with all the packaging that comes with online orders? Both plastic bubble wrap and plastic air pillows can easily be recycled. Find a plastic shopping bag recycling bin (most supermarkets have them), and deposit them there. Bubble wrap and air pillows are made from the same kind of plastic as the shopping bags and will be recycled into new plastic products. Just do one thing before putting them in: Pop the bubbles so they don't take up all the room in the bin.