The Center for Energy and Climate Solutions, a nonprofit organization that works toward practical solutions to climate change, studied the eco-impact of e-commerce shopping. It found an extreme difference between shipping overnight air rather than ground shipping methods. The less-expensive (and slightly slower) ground shipping method uses just 1/10th of the energy consumption of planes. The greenest choice of all is walking to your local store and picking it up yourself.

While munching on an organic apple during your drive to work, you may think it’s perfectly fine to toss the core out the window of your car. It’s 100 percent biodegradable, and it may give a wild animal something to eat, right? But while the apple core is less polluting than, say, a candy wrapper, it’s still trash. Wild animals who find the apple core will discover it by the road, where they are in danger of being struck by a car. There is no appropriate litter to discard from your car, so dispose of all of it -- including apple cores -- in the compost, recycling bin or trash can.

If you have pets or small children, there may be a good reason to remove magnets from your house. Small, powerful magnets called “neodymium” magnets come in tiny shapes and sizes, but have incredible strength because their magnetization is saturated. If more than two of these magnets are accidentally swallowed, they are naturally magnetized toward each other inside the body, which can puncture and rip intestinal tissue and cause serious punctures and wounds. Since powerful magnets are hard to recycle, it’s best to give them away if you want to dispose of them.