Living a 'green' life does not have to be costly and difficult. There are simple steps you can take to help the environment: from using reusable shopping bags to buying local produce.

Use cloth bags when shopping

Carry cloth bags with you whenever you shop, and help reduce the more than 380 billion plastic shopping bags the Environmental Protection Agency says are used in the U.S. annually.

Producing plastic bags requires petroleum and sometimes natural gas. The environmental organization, Californians Against Waste says that if the state of California alone cut out half of the plastic bag use over 2,000 barrels of oil would be saved, and 73,000 tons of garbage would be eliminated from landfills. According to the Worldwatch Institute (WI), it takes 430,000 gallons of oil to produce 100 million plastic bags.

The WI estimates that plastic bags cost U.S. retailers $4 billion annually. Retailers in turn pass the cost of the 'free' plastic bags on to consumers in the form of higher product prices. WSJ Target, the second largest retailer in the U.S., purchases 1.8 billion bags per year.

Don't buy bottled water

Buy permanent plastic water bottles, and stop buying bottled water. Worldwide consumption of bottled water more than doubled from 1997 to 2005, with the U.S. consuming the most bottled water. According to WI, it takes millions of tons of oil-derived plastics to make water bottles, and every year about two million water bottles end up in U.S. landfills. In 2005 the national recycling rate for water bottles was 23.1 percent. The Pacific Institute states that bottled water created over 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2006.

Eat less meat

Swap the chicken dinner or steak for vegetarian dishes at least once a week. Methane is a major contributor to global warming, and animal agriculture is the number one source of methane. The majority of methane (85%) is produced in the digestive tract of livestock. Methane is 21 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) released a report in late 2006 about the environmental impacts of a meat- and dairy-based diet.

... the livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent – 18 percent – than transport. It is also a major source of land and water degradation. -- FAO

Henning Steinfeld, the senior author of the report, said:

Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems. -- FAO

Since 1961 the global livestock population has increased by 60%, according to the WI. WI also states that the amount of fowl raised for human consumption almost quadrupled from 4.2 billion to 15.7 billion. Beef and pork consumption in the U.S. has tripled since 1970, and in Asia it has more than doubled.

"We definitely take up more environmental space when we eat meat," noted Barbara Bramble from the National Wildlife Federation. "I think it's consistent with environmental values to eat lower on the food chain." -- emagazine.com

Buy local produce

Buy produce from local farmers' markets. According to the environmental group, Sustainable Table, the produce at an average U.S. grocery store travels almost 1,500 miles. Forty percent of the fruit in U.S. grocery stores is produced in a foreign country.