Most of us have grown up having been taught not to litter, to always recycle our soda cans and to throw our plastic milk jugs into the proper recycling bins. Unfortunately, that's about as far as some of us go. Only during the past few years, the environment has finally come to the forefront of the mass media and our concerns as a society are finally getting the attention it deserves.

As a company we're constantly striving to become a responsible manufacturer. And while the transition may be difficult at times, we know that taking small steps in the right direction is better than not taking any steps at all. We've began this process by creating Responsible Manufacturing score cards. These score cards are graded on things we do around the office to reduce our carbon footprint.

The list below shows a few small changes we can make around the house that will reduce our carbon footprint and help build a cleaner future.

Don't just throw away plastic grocery bags after shopping, reuse them in your wastebaskets. Home Logic's "Recycle-A-Bag" Wastebasket is made with a rim for wrapping the bag handle around.

Recycle at home and the office - starting with paper. Create a bin strictly for paper with any one of Home Logic's wastebaskets. You can reduce up to half of all the waste that is sent to landfills. That is close to thirty-three million tons each year which saves 561 million trees.

On your washing machine, set the water temperature to "Warm-Cold" instead of "Hot-Hot". Machine washing with "Hot-Hot" settings takes up 90 percent of the energy used in the process. By switching to "Warm-Cold" we can save almost 100,000 barrels of oil a day!

When looking for a laundry machine, opt for front-loaded machines. They are more energy efficient, your clothes wash and dry faster and they use much less water. If one load of laundry was washed in a front-loaded laundry machine at any one of the fourty thousand laundrymats around the United States, we would save a million gallons of water per day.

Clean your dryer lint screen, and don't overload the dryer. You'll save up to 5 percent of you're electricity bill. If everyone did it, we'd save the energy equivalent of 350 million gallons of gasoline per year. Better yet: Use a clothesline when possible.

Recycle-A-Bag Wastebasket