Green Your Fourth: After the Party...

Independence Day is, from sea to shining sea, a glorious holiday. This year, your festivities can help protect those purple mountain majesties. This week’s tips tell you how.

Tip #4: Clean it up.

After the backyard barbecue or the picnic at the park, it’s best to leave not only your immediate surroundings clean, but the greater planet as well. To do that, it’d help to save leftovers, compost food and paper waste, recycle (or better yet, reuse) glass and plastic, and employ the greenest cleaning products you can find. Once you’ve attended to your own space, look around and consider your willingness to pick up others’ trash — it can take only a few moments of your time, but could prevent wildlife from being seriously damaged.

Tell us: What are your favorite green cleanup methods?