10 Things You Should Never Buy Again

1. Styrofoam cups
Styrofoam is forever. It's not biodegradable.
Alternative: Buy recyclable and compostable paper cups.
Best option:  Invest in some reusable mugs that you can take with you.

2. Paper towels
Paper towels waste forest resources, landfill space, and your money.
Alternative: When you do buy paper towels, look for recycled, non-bleached products. Search the National Green Pages™ for recycled paper products.
Best option: Buy dishtowels or rags to wash and reuse.

3. Bleached coffee filters
Dioxins, chemicals formed during the chlorine bleaching process, contaminate groundwater and air and are linked to cancer in humans and animals.
Alternative: Look for unbleached paper filters.
Best Option:  Use reusable filters such as washable cloth filters.

4. Overpackaged foods and other products
Excess packaging wastes resources and costs you much more. Around thirty three percent of trash in the average American household comes from packaging.
Alternative: Buy products with minimal or reusable packaging.
Best Option: Buy in bulk and use your own containers when shopping.

5. Teak and mahogany
Every year, 27 million acres of tropical rainforest (an area the size of Ohio) are destroyed. Rainforests cover 6% of Earth’s surface and are home to over half of the world’s wild plant, animal, and insect species. The Amazon rainforest produces 40 percent of the world’s oxygen.
Alternative: Look for Forest Stewardship Council certified wood.
Best Option: Reuse wood, and buy furniture and other products made from used or salvaged wood.

Learn how to become WoodWise at home and in your office »

6.Chemical pesticides and herbicides
American households use 80 million pounds of pesticides each year. The EPA found at least one pesticide in almost every water and fish sample from streams and in more than one-half of shallow wells sampled in agricultural and urban areas. These chemicals pose threats to animals and people, especially children.
Alternatives: Buy organic pest controllers such as diatomaceous earth.
Best Option: Plant native plants and practice integrated pest management. Plant flowers and herbs that act as natural pesticides.

7. Conventional household cleaners 
Household products can contain hazardous ingredients such as organic solvents and petroleum-based chemicals that can release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into your indoor environment, positing a particular danger for children. The average American household has three to ten of hazardous matter in the home.
Alternative: Look for nontoxic, vegetable-based, biodegradeable cleaners. 
Best Option: Try making your own green cleaner using vinegar, water, and castile soap. 

Find safe, green cleaners in the National Green Pages™»

8. Higher octane gas than you need
Only one car in ten manufactured since 1982 requires high-octane gasoline. High-octane gas releases more hazardous pollutants into the air, and may be bad for your car.
Alternative: Buy the lowest-octane gas your car requires as listed in your owner's manual
Best option: Make your next car purchase a hybrid.  Or ditch the car and take public transportation, ride a bike, or walk.

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Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, the current council president, said Wednesday the meeting will highlight "what a sensitive, difficult issue" climate change is and the importance of addressing its potential security ramifications -- from rising temperatures increasing water levels and swallowing up island nations to possible famine.

"This is a very complex issue and one of the big challenges for the world for the next century, literally," he said.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett will chair the April 17 meeting and has invited the 14 other council nations to be represented at ministerial level if they wish, Jones Parry said.

"The traditional triggers for conflict which exist out there are likely to be exacerbated by the effect of climate change," he said.

The council will look at the impact of climate change on water, agricultural production, the potential for famine and crop surpluses, he said.

"I don't want to state these are factors that determine conflict, no," Jones Parry said. "But they will, at the margin, and sometimes more than the margin, have a contributing effect, too, so that's part of our argument.'

In the Maldives, for instance, a 1.5-degree or 2-degree Centigrade change in temperature will increase the ocean level by 10 feet, or three meters, which would put the country under water, he said.

"If you therefore know your state will not exist, to talk to them about security is something they wouldn't doubt," Jones Parry said.

Britain also wants to hold the meeting to have the Security Council "accept that there is a dimension of this which is a potential threat," he said.

In other countries such as Bangladesh, large numbers of people will have to move, he said.

"They're all factors that can give rise to potential instability," Jones Parry said, "and what we want to see is that they, too, take their place along with energy, environment, economic issues, the scientific aspect" of climate change.

He said the meeting will not produce a council statement or resolution.

"But the fact of holding it and highlighting these issues, we think is important," Jones Parry said.

Last month, an international panel of scientists presented the United Nations with a sweeping, detailed plan to combat climate change, warning that failure would produce a turbulent 21st century of weather extremes, spreading drought and disease, expanding oceans and displacing coastal populations.

That report was issued just three weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an authoritative U.N. network of 2,000 scientists, reported that global warming is being caused largely by the accumulation of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, mostly from man's burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels.

If nothing is done, it said, global temperatures could rise as much as 6 degrees Celsius (11 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100.

Jones Parry said he expects negotiations next year on how the world should address global warming, "and my guess is that sometime next year, there will be a summit devoted to climate change."

He said it was "quite likely" the summit would tak  [report anonymous abuse]