parade 04-22

Is Your Stuff Weighing You Down?A pack rat’s guide to clearing out the clutter this spring

PLUS: An exclusive excerpt from Anna Quindlen’s new book

SUNDAY, APRIL 22 , 2012

© PARADE Publications 2012. All rights reserved.

Walter Sco� ,s

PARADE

Q: Is it true that Person

of Interest’s Taraji P.

Henson once worked at

the Pentagon?

—M. Cunningham, New York

A: “Yes, while I was in college. I was a recep-tionist,” says Henson, 41, who also costars in the fi lm Think Like a Man (out now). “I sat around the corner from Colin Powell’s offi ce, but I never ran into him. I just answered phones and fi led. It wasn’t anything important.”

Q: Brantley Gilbert wrote Jason Aldean’s song “My Kinda Party.” Did he ever consider keeping it for himself? —A. Johnston, San Diego

A: The 27-year-old singer did record it fi rst, on his 2009 album, Modern Day Prodigal Son. But he felt Aldean’s version would help the song reach a larger

audience. “Jason was at a point in his career where he could take it a lot further than I could,” Gilbert says. “And he did a dang good job.” Find out how to enter for a chance to see Gilbert perform at the Ram Truck “Road to the Ram Jam” concert at Parade.com/country.

P Taraji P. Henson

LIVE CHAT WITH

WILSON PHILLIPS!

THE CHART-TOPPERS WILL DISH WITH FANS

ABOUT THEIR NEW ALBUM, DEDICATED;

THEIR REALITY SHOW, STILL HOLDING ON

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MONDAY AT 2 P.M. ET. JOIN THEM!

WALTER SCOTT ASKS …

Julie AndrewsThe 76-year-old legend is celebrating the 10th-anniver-sary Blu-ray release of her Princess Diaries movies as well as Disney and Target’s National Princess Week.

Do people confuse you with the roles you’ve played? Yes; these days it’s usually with The Princess Diaries’ Queen Clarisse. The image of me being ladylike is out there, but with my family I’m a bit bawdy. You and your daughter write a children’s book series called The Very Fairy Princess. What’s behind our fascination with royals? It’s the fantasy—what would it be like to be that glamorous? And now, with our Kate in London, we have a new real-life princess. But in fact the job is about helping the world and giving. I think princesses work really hard as a rule.Have you ever had any mishaps while performing? For one of my fi rst entrances in Camelot, I had to run onstage, stop, and suddenly sing. A couple of times I just couldn’t get the voice out; I choked. What gets you riled up? Thoughtlessness. And if someone is tough on a kid, that really angers me.

Email your questions to Walter Scott at [email protected]. Letters can be sent to P.O. Box 5001, Grand Central Station, New York, N.Y. 10163-5001.

P Brantley Gilbert

Find out which role the

star says she’s most like (no, it’s not

Mary Poppins!) at Parade.com

/andrews

Q: What is the status of the houses Brad Pitt is building in New Orleans’s Lower 9th Ward? —Cathee

Kehtel, Silsbee, Tex.

A: Of the 150 solar-powered homes Pitt pledged to build in 2006 through his Make It Right Foundation (makeitrightnola.org), half are fi nished, with the rest due by 2014. “New technology isn’t just for the rich,” Pitt told PARADE last year.

P Brad Pitt in New Orleans

P The Lucky One

Q: Many of Nicholas Sparks’s books get made into movies. Does he write his characters with certain actors in mind? —Zoe, Great Falls, Mont.

A: “I don’t,” says the novelist, 46. “But I have

to be aware that my work might be turned into a fi lm, so I would never write a love story set on the Titanic—it’s not going to feel original.” The Lucky One, based on Sparks’s 2008 best seller, is in theaters now. For a look at the fi lm, which stars Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling, go to Parade.com/lucky.

which role the r says she’s most ke (no, it’s not

yy

Mary Poppins!) (

t Parade.com/andrews

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TONIGHT 9|8c

WORLD PREMIERE MOVIE EVENT

She never had a chance

until he gave her one.

ACADEMY AWARD® WINNER

CUBA GOODING JR.


Report money, entertainment, and moreyour guide to health, life,

INTELLIGENCE

Je� rey Dean Morgan

SUNDAY WITH ...

The actor opens up about fatherhood, log cabin life, and channeling the 1950s

was something I could relate to.

You have a 2-year-old

son, Gus, with your girl-

friend, actress Hilarie

Burton. Does he have

your dimples?

He does; he’s a mini me. I know everyone thinks that their kid is the greatest, but I’m telling you right now that my kid is. We named him after the character Robert

PARADE Had you spent

much time in Miami

before the show?

I hadn’t, so I expected it to be like Miami Vice, with guys wearing turquoise suits and loafers with no socks. But that’s not hap-pening anymore. What’s special about Miami is the collision of cultures. And the white sand beaches and fantastic restaurants.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan was so beloved as Denny on Grey’s Anatomy

that he was brought back from the dead. “I got a call from [show creator] Shonda Rhimes, who said, ‘This is going to seem crazy, but what do you think about coming back?’” Morgan, 46, recalls. “I said, ‘How? You killed me.’ And she said, ‘I’m working it out.’” Denny returned in late 2008 as a tumor- induced hallucina-tion; fans still swoon over his and Izzie’s doomed love story. “Let’s just say I know when they’re showing reruns,” laughs Morgan, who’s now starring as a ’50s Miami hotelier in Magic City (Starz, Fridays, 10 p.m. ET). He talks sand and cycles with Mary Margaret.

Duvall plays in the mini-series Lonesome Dove.

Where do you hang your

hat these days?

We found a little piece of land with a log cabin in the Hudson Valley that we love. We’re like Little House on the Prairie out there, getting up in the morning to chop wood. People would laugh if they saw us, but that’s the world I’m comfortable with.

It’s an actual log cabin?

The real deal. It’s got a big fi replace, two rooms; it’s in the middle of the woods.

What do you do on

Sundays?

If it’s football season, all things sort of stop. I’m from Seattle, so I’ll watch the Seahawks and whatever other game that day is worthy. Otherwise, we might have a bonfi re or stay inside if it’s cold. Hilarie is a hell of a cook and does this nice roast with a horseradish rub.

Do you cook?

I do. I love myself a truffl e. I can put a truffl e in any-thing and make it good.

How many motorcycles

do you have now?

Three, and I’m always looking for another! I’ve got a love affair with Harley-Davidson. One of my earliest photos with my dad is of him holding me as a baby on his bike. I did an exact replica of it with Gus on mine.

Katherine Heigl said she’d

love to return to Grey’s.

Would you go back?

The chemistry we had was special. I don’t know if it will ever happen again. But if Shonda asked me to do some-thing, whatever it was, I’d be there. I owe so much to her and that show.

Was it easy slipping into

1950s mode?

I got into it as soon as I put my skinny little tie on! We think of my character, Ike, as a Dean Martin kind of guy, oozing confi dence and charm in public. But when he’s alone, you can see the cracks in the armor. He loves his fam-ily and will do anything to protect them and his investments, and that

I LOVE BEING OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF

NOWHERE. THE FARTHER AWAY

I GET, THE HAPPIER I AM.”

See pictures of the star’s favorite

motorcycle rides at Parade.com/morgan

�

4 • April 22, 2012

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75 73 33 23 21

49 43 3 5

81

61

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Numbrix®

Complete 1 to 81 so the numbers follow a horizontal or

vertical path—no diagonals.

Say you need to fl y a plane

from town A to town B and

return the same day. The

plane cruises at 100 mph,

and the towns are 100 miles

apart. You can make the trip

either today or tomorrow.

Today will be completely

calm. Tomorrow, the wind

will be blowing from A to B

at 50 mph all day. So it will

assist you fl ying from A to

B, but it will hinder you fl y-

ing from B to A. Which day

should you make the trip?

—Billy Baucom, Cary, N.C.

What do you think, read-ers? Take a guess before reading on.

It’s better to go today. Why? The wind will hinder your fl ight from B to A more than it will assist your fl ight from A to B. Today, the round-trip would take two hours. Tomorrow, fl ying from A to B would take 40 minutes (at 150 mph), but the return trip would last two hours (at 50 mph).

Ask MarilynBy Marilyn vos Savant


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in AK, HI, PR and where prohibited. Sponsor: Chrysler Group LLC, 1000 Chrysler Drive, Auburn Hills, MI 48326-2766. This Promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administrated by, or associated with, Facebook.® Ram is a registered trademark of Chrysler Group LLC.


I have a lot of stuff. I bet you do, too. Sofas, beds, bureaus, bookshelves. Dishes, bowls, candlesticks, serving trays. Easy chairs, folding chairs, wicker chairs. Lots and lots of chairs.

I didn’t have all this stuff when I was young and single. None of us did. It was a big deal to have blinds and coffee mugs. Many of the guys I knew didn’t; they’d tack a sheet over the bedroom window, drink from Styrofoam. My fi rst apartment was pretty typical; I had a small uncomfortable sleeper sofa, a bentwood rocker, a coffee table that was actually a trunk—didn’t everyone in 1976?—and a set of bookshelves.

In the bedroom I had a chest of drawers and a desk that was too low for an adult, at which I would hunch over my old manual Smith Corona type-writer, my knees contorted beneath. I had swapped the twin bed of my girl-hood for a double bed, which some children nowadays, raised on queen-size beds, can scarcely imagine. I was proud of that double bed. Many of my friends had futons.

But then we got married and we got carafes, chafi ng dishes, and china. We bought matching love seats for the living room. The acquisition of stuff began. One day I peered inside my closet and realized it looked like it belonged to a woman with multiple personality disorder. The bohemian look, the sharp suits, the frilly dresses. Those days are behind me, and I fi nally know whom I’m dressing: a person who has 18 pairs of black pants.

It wasn’t always like this, was it? At some point desire and need became untethered in our lives, and shopping became a competitive sport. It was generally agreed in our family that my grandmother Quindlen was a world-class shopper, but for her, there was always an object to the hunt: a Hitchcock chair, a pair of Naturalizer pumps. Sometimes I feel as though credit cards have helped us concentrate on quantity, not quality. Plastic is magical, as though the bill will never come due.

What do we notice when we drive down the highways of our youth and measure what’s changed? There are the big-box stores, the home emporiums,

the fast-food places, but the weirdest addition are those storage facilities that loom, bunkerlike, windowless. When we were kids, storage was the basement and attic, an army trunk, atop a broken chair. When my grown children got their own places, they went shopping in the top and bottom stories of my own home. My husband says that when you go to their apartments, it’s like a walk down memory lane—that little table we never really found a place for, the coffee mugs that take both of us right back to the era when there was scarcely time for coffee because someone always needed a glass of milk or a story read. My husband has never cared much about stuff himself. Here’s what he needs: a comfortable chair in which to read and watch TV. Sharp knives. A bottle opener. A pillow that, like the Goldilocks story, is neither too soft nor too hard.

There was a period when I believed stuff meant something. I thought that if you had matching side chairs and a sofa that harmonized and some beauti-ful lamps to light them, you would have a home, that elegance signaled happiness. I fooled myself into thinking that House Beautiful should be sub-titled Life Wonderful. I don’t know why I thought this, since the home in which I grew up, the oldest of fi ve, was always pretty topsy-turvy, the dining room table turned into a fort with blankets, the chunk-chunk sound of someone jumping on the bed upstairs. Statisticians say our houses are almost twice as large, on average, as they were 40 years ago, but we all understand that that doesn’t mean the people inside are any more content. Now that I’m nearing 60, I understand the truth about possessions, that they mean or prove or solve nothing. Stuff is not salvation.

My friend Susan is my role model in this regard. She and her husband and their three boys have somehow for-gone crazed consumerism. They get honey from their bees, eggs from their chickens, venison the way you do out in the country, where hunt-ing trumps the supermarket. Susan and her many sisters have swap meets in which they shop around among one another’s clothing. On Christmas several years ago, her youngest, Willem, was permitted, in his family’s fashion, to open one gift on Christmas eve. The next morn-ing, when he saw his stack of pres-ents under the tree, he said, “But I already have one.”

That’s how I feel, too. For years I acquired stuff, and after a certain point, I can’t say when, I realized I didn’t really care about most of it. If there was a fi re, what would I save? We all used to say it was the photo albums, but with digital photography we all have our pictures on our computers. My cookbooks are well thumbed, but I know the best recipes by heart

Full HouseIt starts innocently enough. A cha� ng dish here,

a set of co� ee mugs there. The next thing you know,

you’re buried under an avalanche of things you

no longer want. If you feel possessed by your pos-

sessions, we’re here to help. By Anna Quindlen

COVER AND INSIDE ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROZ CHAST

SELL IT!

Where: eBay and the “for sale” section on CraigslistWhat: Hot-ticket items on eBay include cameras, computers, collectibles, jewelry, and new-with-tags clothing. If you don’t want to bother with crating and shipping, start local and use Craigslist, where furniture, baby gear, power tools, and sports equipment do well.

Ways to PurgeWhat to do with the stu� that’s not worth saving

6 • April 22, 2012


now, and the bad recipes I’ve either discarded or adapted. There’s a porcelain bird I gave my mother the Christmas before she died,

which she owned for less than a month, and which I’ve wrapped carefully in tissue and taken with me from the small apartment to the bigger apartment to the fi rst house to the bigger house. There are the letters my kids write each year to Santa Claus, even now that they no longer watch me seal them in envelopes and address them to S. Claus, North Pole, 99705 (which is really the zip code of North Pole, Alaska, not the real North Pole).

But in case of disaster I’d probably just grab a few old family photos and the Labradors. I’d be wearing the watch and the rings my husband gave me for the big birthdays. I haven’t removed my wedding ring since the day he put it on me and the priest blessed it. I’d miss the rest, but I wouldn’t mourn it. (Except for the Christmas ornaments, I guess. My entire family is pretty attached to the Christmas ornaments.)

Here’s what it comes down to, really: There is now so much stuff in my head. Memories and lessons learned have taken the place of possessions. Over the stove is the sampler I see while I’m poaching eggs or poking a fork into the pot roast: “Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been

hurt. Dance like no one’s looking.” But I suppose it could vanish, too. That’s a lesson I’ve learned by heart, over time, when I wasn’t distracted by acquisition. When I fall back into the old ways, I remember Willem saying on Christmas morning, “But I already have one.” That’s my new mantra, and it applies to almost every-thing. I already have one. I bet you do, too.

Adapted from Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen. Published by Random House, a division of Random House Inc. © 2012 by Anna Quindlen.

GIVE IT AWAY!Where: The regift pileWhat: Unopened items that make good hostess, teacher, or Secret Santa gifts (scented candles or soaps, for instance) go here. To avoid potential embarrass-ment, label each with a sticky note listing the date you received it and the name of the giver, Walsh suggests. Also, check the packaging carefully for personal notes or gift tags. Where: CharitiesWhat: Used-but-still-wearable

6 Ways to Purge | continued

SELL IT! Where: Yard saleWhat: Furniture, power tools, lawn mowers, toys, sports equipment, and bicycles typically move briskly—though you won’t get much for them. Clothing especially tends to

Things to Throw Out TodayWant to declu� er, but not sure where to begin? Experts say these items are a must-toss for any household.

1. Computer printouts

Don’t let mounds of paper pile up when you have so many digital storage options, says organizational expert Mary Carlomagno, author of Give It Up! My Year of Learn-ing to Live Better With Less. If you really like something—an article, a recipe, a how-to—use websites like Delicious, Instapaper, or Pinterest to virtually hold on to it.

2. Paper copies of paid bills

“If you need to prove you paid for something, there’s the Internet, there’s the bank,” Carlomagno says. “Don’t toss documents you obviously need—leases, licenses, things like that—but the Macy’s bills from 1985? Those can go.”

clothing, plus unwanted books, furniture, and kitchenware, can all go to Goodwill or the Salvation

Army. What about old eyeglasses, toys, or sneakers? Check out Parade.com/stuff for a compre-hensive guide to where to send specifi c items.

Where: Freecycle.org and the “free” section on Craigslist What: Nearly everything (prescrip-tion drugs are an exception) can be disposed of greenly through these sites; computers, appli-ances, furniture, and children’s play equipment—like swing sets and trampolines—are the most in demand. —Hilary Sterne

go for a pittance. Think of a yard sale as a way to have neighbors pay you modestly for the favor of hauling away your stuff rather than as a moneymaking venture, sug-gests professional organizer Peter Walsh, author of It’s All Too Much.

TRASH IT!Where: The curbWhat: Items that are stained, broken, or irreparably damaged belong here, along with unwant-ed mementos that are meaning-ful to no one but you (like that Little League trophy from 1978). Says Walsh, “Sometimes one man’s trash is really another man’s trash.”

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For the ultimate pleasure,always bet on Red!

For the ultimate pleasure,always bet on Red!

, ,I ’ Ri h i ’ R d i ’ N M h l, ,, ,I ’ Ri h i ’ R d i ’ N M hIt’s Rich, it’s Red, it’s Non-MentholIt’s Rich, it’s Red, it’s Non-Menthol,,,,,,ccc ’s’ss’s’ss’s’ss ooeeooddddReRe tttttttttttt N MMMM hhhhnnnnnnRRRhhhhRRR liiii ii --’’’’’’’’ ’’’’ iiit’s Rich, it’s Red, it’s Non-Mentho,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,ccccccccccc ssss’s’s’s’ssssssss’s’s’s’ssssssss’s’s’s’ssss oooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeooooooooooodddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeeeee tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt NNNNNNNNNNN MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM hhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnRRRRRRRRRRRhhhhhhhhhhhRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIII iiiiiiiiiii lllllllllllliiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiii oooooooooooodddddd -----------MMMMMMMMeeeeeeeeeeee’s’s’’’’’’’’’s ’s’s’’’’’’’’’s’s’s’’’’’’’’’s NNNNNNNNRRRRRRRRRRRR iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ,, ,,,,,,,,,, ddddddccccc eeeeeeeeee ooooooooooss’s’ssss’s’ssss’s’ss tttttttttttttttttttt llllhhhhhhhnnnnnMMMMMMMMMnnnnniiiiiRReRRRRiiiiihhhhhhhiiiiiRRRRRRIIIII NNNNNNNNN ooooooooooddddd ----- eeeeeeeeee ’s’s’s’ss’’’’’s’s’s’ss’’’’’s’s’s’ss’’’’ RRRRRRRRRR iiiiiiiiiiiiIt’s Rich, it’s Red, it’s Non-Menthol

Newport, Pleasure, spinnaker design, package design and other

trade dress elements TM Lorillard Licensing Company LLC Reg.

U.S. Pat. & Tm. Off. © Lorillard 2012

Visit us at Newport-pleasure.com

Restricted to Adult Smokers 21 or Older.


3. VHS tapes, casse� e tapes, or

old video games

News fl ash: VCRs won’t be making a comeback—and neither will boomboxes or prehistoric game consoles. If there’s something you really cherish—a wedding video, a favorite mixtape—digitize it; services like iMemories.com (VHS or fi lm) and Southtree.com (audio) can do the job for about $15 apiece.

4. Home gym equipment

Even if you and your family work out often, you probably still have little-used exercise gear (like a rowing machine or some infomer-cial contraption) lurking in a closet or basement. Ditch anything you haven’t touched in the past year—that goes for yoga mats, workout clothes, and water bottles, too.

5. Worn-out linens

Throw away threadbare towels and mismatched bed linens in favor of a few well-made items. Erin Rooney Doland offers this simple equation in her book Unclutter Your Life in One Week: Add up the people in your house plus the number of guest bed-rooms and multiply by two. That’s how many towels and washcloths you need. Have two sets of sheets per bed—and don’t forget the air mattress or sofa bed.

6. Old hair accessories

Is your bathroom cabinet over-fl owing with hair dryers, irons,

hot combs, and rollers? “Unless you use it daily or weekly, toss it,” says Jill Pollack, host of HGTV Canada’s Consumed .

7. Outdated cell phones

People hoard old phones for fear of putting their private info at risk; Pollack advises recycling them instead, either through a charity like Cell Phones for Soldiers or a big-box store like Home Depot or Best Buy.

8. Extra coat hangers “For the love of all things environ-mental, collect and return them to your dry cleaner,” says Pollack.

9. Reminders of past hobbies

Your interests change over time, but the things connected to them—that old set of golf clubs, the guitar you never learned to play—tend to linger. Hand these items off to friends or relatives who can put them to better use, Carlomagno suggests.

10. Single-use kitchen gadgets Unless you chow down on grape-fruit every morning and host monthly crab feasts, you can dispose of the grapefruit knives and crab mallets; opt for multi purpose tools instead. The exception? “If you use something for holiday baking or cooking, it’s worth keeping around,” says Pollack. So the Christmas-tree cookie cutters get a pass, but every-thing else goes. —Alex McDaniel

MAKING A CLEAN SWEEP? VISIT PARADE.COM/STUFF FOR A LIST OF CHARITIES THAT WILL HELP YOU GET RID OF EVERYTHING FROM ART SUPPLIES TO YOGA MATS. NOT READY TO LET GO? OUR EXCUSE-BUSTING

GUIDE WILL CHANGE YOUR TUNE FROM “I’M SAVING IT!” TO “IT’S OUTTA HERE!”

j

10 Things to Toss | from page 8

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April 22, 2012 • 11

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1On average, how

fast do you drive on

the highway?

(a) 55 mph(b) 65 mph(c) 75 mph

2 When your vehicle

needs a bath, do you:

(a) Grab the hose and a bucket and do it yourself(b) Go to a car wash

3What type of driver

are you?

(a) Aggressive(b) Calm and collected(c) Somewhere in between

6 You’re hosting a

cookout and need

to stock up on beer. At

the store, you fi ll your

cart with:

(a) Cans(b) Bottles(c) A keg

4 It’s lunchtime and

you’re craving a

fast-food burger. Do you:

(a) Order at the drive-through(b) Park and head inside to place your order

HOW GREEN ARE

You?SURE, YOU TURN OFF THE TAP WHEN YOU BRUSH YOUR TEETH

AND RECYCLE THE SUNDAY PAPER. THAT’S A GOOD START.

BUT OTHER EVERYDAY HABITS MAY HAVE A BIGGER IMPACT ON THE

ENVIRONMENT THAN YOU THINK. TAKE OUR QUIZ TO FIND OUT

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN DO TO MAKE THE WORLD A GREENER PLACE.

BY COL L E E N OA K L E Y

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the store

cart with:

(a) Cans(b) Bottle(c) A keg

HO A

START

8 Now let’s head over to

the produce section.

With fruits and vegetables,

you look for this label:

(a) Organic (b) Locally grown(c) I don’t look at labels

9Your spouse cooked

dinner, so you’re on

dish duty. Do you:

(a) Wash everything by hand(b) Rinse off bits of food, then load the dishwasher(c) Put the dirty dishes straight into the dishwasher

10 After mowing the

lawn, what do you

do with the clippings?

(a) Leave them in the yard(b) Bag them and put them out by the curb

7Okay, you’ve had enough burgers

and barbecue. It’s time for a healthy dinner:

salmon. At the fi sh counter, you choose:

(a) Atlantic (b) Wild caught from

Washington,

Oregon, or California (c) Neither; you skip

the fi sh counter and buy canned

IT’SEARTHDAY!

y


1(a) 2 points; (b) 1; (c) 0. Fuel e� ciency decreases rapidly

at speeds above 60 mph, accord-ing to the Environmental Protec-tion Agency. For every 5 mph you drive over 60, you pay an additional 31 cents a gallon.

2 (a) 0; (b) 1. Washing your car at home creates a toxic

brew of oil, gasoline, and deter-gent that enters storm drains and � ows directly into rivers, lakes, and streams. Most professional car washes use recycled water and drain their H2O into a sewer system, so the sludge gets treated before reentering nature. Many also use 60 percent less water than DIY jobs.

3 (a) 0; (b) 2; (c) 1. Aggressive acceleration, speeding, and

hard braking at tra� c lights or stop signs can de� ate your high-way gas mileage by up to 33 per-cent, according to the EPA.

4(a) 0; (b) 1. Idling for 10 sec-onds or longer burns more

gas than restarting the engine, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.

5(a) 0; (b) 1; (c) 2. According to a study from the Oak Ridge

National Laboratory, when in use for one hour, a gas grill emits 5.6 pounds of carbon dioxide, and charcoal 11 pounds; an electric

grill doesn’t emit CO2 directly but accounts for a whopping 15 pounds owing to the production and transmission of electricity.

6(a) 1; (b) 0; (c) 2. For big bashes, buying a keg and

serving beer in reusable cups creates the least waste, says Terri Benne� , author of Do Your

Part. Aluminum is the next-best choice—it’s lightweight and easily recycled, landing back on shelves in 60 days or less. Glass, while also recyclable, is heavier, which means more fuel is needed to transport it.

7(a) 0; (b) 1; (c) 2. Canned salmon comes mainly from

wild Alaskan waters; many salmon from other U.S. states are considered endangered or threat-ened. And “Atlantic” usually means “farmed,” a process that critics assert uses chemicals and unsustainable � shing practices.

8 (a) 1; (b) 2; (c) 0. Researchers have found that the average

meal can travel 1,500 miles to reach your table, says Sam David-son of CoolPeopleCare.com. You can cut down on emissions by buy-ing local produce (which is usually organic or grown with sustainable farming practices).

9(a) 0; (b) 1; (c) 2. Running a fully loaded dishwasher may

use half the energy and one-sixth less water than doing dishes by hand, according to a study by the University of Bonn in Germany. And research by Consumer Reports found that prerinsing can waste up to 6,000 gallons of water per household each year.

10 (a) 1; (b) 0. Every year, Americans produce

millions of tons of leaf and grass clippings; some end up in land-� lls. In most cases, leaving the grass on your lawn is not just greener; as the clippings decom-pose, they actually make the soil healthier.

11(a) 0; (b) 1; (c) 2. Super-e� cient LED bulbs are

expensive—you can end up paying over $20 a pop—but they last three times longer than CFLs and more than 10 times longer than incandescent bulbs.

12 (a) 0; (b) 1; (c) 2. Flush-ing pills can send them

into waterways, says Davidson. Recycling the container is a good move, but it’s best to return medications to your pharmacist, who will dispose of them prop-erly. Next Saturday, April 28, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Adminis-tration is sponsoring its National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day. To � nd collection sites near you, go to dea.gov.

11 When a lightbulb in your house burns out,

you replace it with: (a) An incandescent lightbulb(b) A compact fl uorescent lightbulb (CFL) (c) A light-emitting diode (LED) bulb

TALLY YOUR

SCORE

0 –7 POINTS

Pale Green. It’s time to get more eco-conscious. Start small—for instance, by replacing just fi ve regular lightbulbs with low-energy bulbs. When you shop, look for products with minimal packaging (read: less waste), and try to shave one minute off your daily shower—you’ll save up to 1,000 gallons of water each year.

8 – 14 POINTS

Bright Green. The planet’s health is on your radar, but it’s not always your top priority. Want to take your good intentions a step further? For better gas mileage, use cruise control whenever possible and remove unnecessary weight from the trunk. Install low-fl ow showerheads and toilets in your bathroom. And buy power strips you can easily switch off when appliances are not in use.

15 –21 POINTS

Fluorescent Green. For an environmental expert like you, it is easy being green. So share your knowledge. Launch a reusable lunch box campaign at your kid’s school in which you ask parents to replace plastic baggies and forks with washable Tupperware and cutlery. Or start a neighbor-hood carpool for weekend errands—like a trip to the farmers’ market.

12 • April 22, 2012

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12 You’re cleaning out the medicine cabinet

and fi nd a bunch of expired medications. Do you:(a) Flush them down the toilet (b) Toss them in the garbage but recycle the container(c) Return them to the pharmacy

1you(a) (b) ligh(c) (LE

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