Countdowns

10 Ways to Green Your Spending

When is a hamburger not just a hamburger? When your average quarter-pounder devours 600 gallons of water, 1.2 pounds of feed grain, and 6 square feet of former prairie landâ€'�plus the loss of five times the patty's weight in topsoilâ€'�even before some pimply teenager gets to slap it on a grill. Everything we consume, buy, or use impacts the environment; more pointedly, as bestselling food author and Small Planet Institute co-founder Anna Lappe once mused, every time you fork over your cash, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want. Unless your idea of utopia derives from "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome," here are just some of the ways you can make your dollars count.â€'� Jasmin Malik Chua