Below are the 12 actions Frank Herdman and Anna Mondragon stuck with for one week around Earth Day last year during a Green Week Challenge:

1. Ride a bike, take a bus, walk or share a ride with friends. Stay out of your own vehicle as often as you can.

2. Take your own coffee mug to work and coffee shops.

3. Recycle everything you can: No. 1 and No. 2 plastic, cardboard, newspaper, glass, junk mail. There are places where you can also recycle cell phones and other electronics.

4. Buy food produced as close to where you live as possible. Start with the local farmers market and cooperative. Check labels to see where food is coming from. Grow a few veggies of your own.

5. Go for fresh. Avoid processed foods.

6. Use cloth bags for all purchases, not just at the grocery store.

7. Unplug all electrical devices when they're not in use. Plug devices into a power strip and turn off the power strip.

8. Save your shower water and pump it outside to landscaping.

9. Turn lights off.

10. Drink filtered tap water instead of bottled water. If you have to buy bottled, recycle.

11. Take five-minute showers.

12. Keep the tap turned off while brushing your teeth.