A frequently overlooked area when it comes to greening your life is greening your pet's life. This can be a tricky subject, since what works best to keep your pet healthy and happy may not always be an ecofriendly decision. Luckily, there's easy ways to make sure that Fido leaves a lighter pawprint.

Where you get your pet can have the biggest overall impact. Rescuing a pet from a shelter or the Humane Society gives an already existing pet a good home and the possibility of a happy life. Why pay a breeder to create another animal? Accordingly, heed Bob Barker's sage wisdom: remember to help control the pet population; have your pet spayed or neutered.

Just like human food choices, your pet's diet has an impact on our environment. However, pet owners know that diet is crucial to your pet's health, and can be very particular to a pet. Always check with your vet when changing pet foods. That being said, there are organic, humane, and sustainably-produced pet foods on a market–in fact, it's a fast-growing niche. Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Trader Joe's have their own lines of pet foods, and there are plenty of other sources online.

All that food has to go somewhere, as pet owners know. Pick up your dog's poop with biodegradable doggy bags. Better yet, compost it. Yeah, yeah, I know you aren't supposed to compost pet waste. However, that rule generally goes for compost that is going to be used on edible plants, like a veggie garden–using that compost on landscaping or flowerbeds is fine. If the thought of adding poo to your pile still makes you cringe, create a whole separate compost just for pet waste. Bury a metal garbage can for a securely-contained poo pile. For your feline friends, avoid clay-based litters–the clay is strip-mined, and the dust from the clay can irritate your cat's lungs. A much more sustainable choice is Swheat Scoop, a wheat-based scoopable litter. Should your precious pal leave a not-so precious present for you on the carpet, there are plenty of eco-friendly pet-odor eliminators, from such companies as Mrs. Meyer's.

Finally, choose greener pet items when shopping for your pet. Scratching posts, toys, and leashes all come in more sustainable varieties. GreenPeople.org is a good resource for finding various vendors.

I recently profiled the success of TerraCycle, the New Jersey corporation selling worm tea from vermicomposting in reclaimed plastic soda bottles. Looks like bigger corporations are starting to notice Terra Cycle–and not in a good way.

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company has filed a suit against TerraCycle, claiming their plant food bottle looks too much like their own Miracle-Gro bottles; both bottles, though dramatically different, both have yellow and green on their lables along with pictures of flowers and vegetables. Interestingly, at least 120 other lawn and garden products currently on the market also have green and yellow packaging.

Scotts is also demanding that TerraCycle hand over results of scientific tests conducted at Rutgers University that support the eco-friendly company's claim that their plant food is "as good or better than the leading synthetic plant food", although Scotts has refused to hand over their own similar study to TerraCycle.

Further investigation notes that Scotts, whose annual sales total an estimated $2.2 billion, has sued 20 different competitors for infringement of intellectual property in the past ten years. TerraCycle, whose annual sales came in at an estimated $1.5 million, has started a blog documenting the David versus Goliath drama. You can find more information there, including information on how you can help.

I wrote about my class visit to the landfill (oh yes, I've been to TWO different landfills in the last six months) and about how that has impacted both my students and our school. Along with kicking butt in paper recycling (our Abitibi dumpster was filled to the brim today in our first post-spring-break recycling collection), we've slowly but surely started plastic bottle recycling.

Even our small school (320 students) generates a ton (figuratively) of plastic beverage bottles every day. I also mentioned that were were recycling our 20 ounce bottles through Terra Cycle's Bottle Brigade.

Terra Cycle, in short, rocks. Founded by Tom Szaky and Jon Beyer in 2001 while students at Princeton, Terra Cycle started as a way to spread the benefits of vermicomposting (that is, composting with worms) to a larger audience. For those out of the loop, worm poop is awesome fertilizer for your garden. Brown gold, if you will. Szaky and Beyer were eventually able to earn startup funds, and by 2004, Home Depot was carrying Terra Cycle Plant Food on their website.

Not only is their actual product eco-friendly, but their packaging is, as well. That's what happens to my kids' 20 ounce soda bottles: we send them back to Terra Cycle (sans label and cap), who pays us for the bottles. A nickle each. Anyone can do this, although you don't really get paid: the charity of your choice gets the money. This works for us, since technically, our school is a charity, so we can get paid. Terra Cycle takes those bottles, washes them, and relabels them. They add a trigger spray (a leftover from another corporation that produced too many) and the product is ready to ship.

Nowadays, you can still find Terra Cycle Plant Food at Home Depot, along with multiple other outlets. You can also join the Bottle Brigade, and Terra Cycle will send you prepaid shipping boxes to send them your 20 ounce bottles, which you can send back to them and donate your contribution to your favorite charity. More information on both the worm poop and the Bottle Brigade at Terra Cycle's website.

I hate cleaning. Hate it. I also hate the nasty chemical smell that can come with it. In fact, cleaning products are some of the most toxic materials in your home. Not only do they pose a health hazard, but many of them contain petrochemicals that are harmful to the environment. So what to do to keep your house clean AND earth-friendly? As much as I hate cleaning, I like it a lot more when I find awesome green cleaning products.

Like Rebecca’s Tip O’ The Day noted earlier, baking soda is a wonderful, earth-friendly cleaning product you can get almost anywhere on the cheap. Borax, white vinegar, and cream of tartar are just a few items you can use to make safe, non-toxic cleaning products. This site has plenty of recipes if you want to eschew commercial products completely. However, if you are not into the DIY scene, there are a plethora of cleaning products out there that are non-toxic and biodegradable. I’ve used several, and these are some of the lines that have produced favorable results.

Probably the most widely available, and certainly popular, are Method products. Method produces non-toxic, biodegradable cleaners that are minimally (and tastefully) packaged, and they don’t test on animals. They also just introduced floor cleaner kits (which I am SO resisting buying, since I already have a perfectly good mop and bucket), called the oMop that include those popular disposable microfiber mop pads–however, theirs are compostable. Method’s appeal is their cost-friendliness and availablity–you can get it at your big-box discount store, and it does stand out in a sea of traditional toxic cleaners in those stores.

Seventh Generation makes paper products and cleaning products–in fact, their Free and Clear line has no fragrances or dyes for those with allergies. Their company has rigorous standards for their products, namely that they are all vegetable-based and biodegradable, are not environmentally hazardous or acutely or chronically toxic, contain no phosphates, chlorine, or animal products. They also have awesome coupons on their website.

If you are looking for straight-up awesomely-scented cleaning products that make your kitchen smell like flowers, not chemicals, Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day products fit the bill. Their biodegradable cleaners come in three scents, geranium, lemon verbena, and lavender, with a limited run of honeysuckle products out right now for spring cleaning. I love their laundry soap–there’s nothing like lavender-scented t-shirts right out of the dryer.

However, my new favorite eco-cleaning line is Bi-O-Kleen, which I pick up at our local green general store. Bi-O-Kleen products are biodegradable, non-toxic, highly concentrated to reduce packaging, and they have an entire soy-based product line. The best part about Bi-O-Kleen products is that their containers are refillable at many retailers–I just take back my empty bottle, and my store refills it (for a discount, too!) I must insert a personal rave on their automatic dish soap: I’ve never found a biodegradable dishwasher soap that actually worked with our dishwasher, but this soap leaves my dishes completely streak-free. A note on their website–they haven’t updated in quite a while, because their products have completely different (and I think better) label design, but it is the same product line.

In the age of overconsumption, even the thriftiest among us find themselves with perfectly good items that we no longer need. Green folks want to keep that stuff out of landfills and give it a new home. Websites like Freecycle and Craigslist provide forums for people to advertise things they'd like to give away, but St Louis-based web developers Peter Schmalfeldt and John Kramlich wanted to provide a more user-friendly medium for those looking to connect their reusables with new owners. They’ve created Gigoit, which stands for "Garbage In, Garbage Out", a free web-based service that’s aiming to simplify reusing. Gigoit has only been live for less than a month, and strong communities have already sprouted in the St Louis and Memphis areas.

“Most people who could be using a service like this are really deciding between using something like Freecycle or just throwing [the item] in the trash,” says Schmalfeldt. “That is a huge decision. It has to be super easy to donate an item, and it needs to be fast…they should be able to get the item out of their hands as quickly and painlessly as possible.”

How does Gigoit differ from Freecycle? Simply put, it's easier. For one, users don’t have to go through a lengthy registration period just to access items up for grabs. Anyone can immediately see what's available near a given zip code. By eliminating the “mailing list” model, all information is centralized, and it’s much easier to find what’s relevant to the user, his or her area, and what her or she is looking for. Once an item has been picked up, it’s taken off the board by the giver, without having to post a message for everyone else on the site to filter through. Users only receive messages related to their own transactions, and RSS feeds allow users to quickly access the latest items in their area. Users also manage their own profiles, which can be as elaborate or as simple as they want, and users aren't limited to certain geographical areas–you can access items from all over the country on the same site.

In short: Schmalfeldt and Kramlich have done their homework. Despite its small start, the relative simplicity of using Gigoit will have it surpassing Freecycle and Craigslist in no time.