Have you recently finished painting your living room and wondered what to do with your leftover paint? It's actually recyclable through a nonprofit program called PaintCare. PaintCare is available in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, D.C. These states have passed legislation called "paint stewardship laws," which requires the paint manufacturing industry to take back old paint for recycling. But the companies take back more than just interior and exterior paints, they also include deck coatings, primers, stains, undercoats, rust preventatives and shellacs, urethanes and varnishes. Paintcare.org makes it easy to find drop-off points.

Using rechargeable batteries is the greenest choice, since they can be recharged up to 1,000 times before they lose their ability to recharge. Plus, rechargeable batteries are easily recyclable -- check out the nonprofit Call2Recycle.org for recycling sites. But when shopping for rechargeable batteries, there is a difference. Cheaper nickel-cadmium batteries tend to drain quickly and need to be charged more often. Plus, cadmium is highly toxic. Instead, buy batteries called "NiMH" (nickel-metal hydride). They are rechargeable and do not use cadmium. Plus, NiMH batteries keep their charge longer and have a longer shelf life.

Here's an old but good tip about what to do with burned-out compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL): recycle them. While CFLs do last a lot longer than incandescent bulbs, they eventually die, and they contain a toxic material -- mercury -- that shouldn't be thrown in the trash. Fortunately, Lowe's, the Home Depot and TrueValue hardware stores all accept unbroken CFL bulbs in-store for recycling in drop-off recycling bins. It's important to put the bulbs in the recycling bin plastic bags that are provided individually, seal them up and carefully deposit them into the bin.