The most important rule is to reduce the amount of garbage you create. Buy in bulk as much as you can. Avoid overly packaged convenience food since much of the material ends up in landfills.
Buy products in refillable, recycled, reusable containers - each is better than the other. If possible, buy concentrated products (soaps, detergents and beverages)
Reuse material in your home - jars, shopping bags, plastic bags. Buy containers that can be reused - better to buy plastic than to use aluminum foil.
Pay attention to packaging. Some red and yellow dyes contain cadmium, which can contaminate groundwater.
Use your own bags when grocery shopping (if possible) and try not to bag items that do not need to be bagged.
Compost garbage (if your community allows it) along with leaves, and grass clippings.
Don't buy what you don't need. Sell or donate used items to charities rather than throwing them away.
When you buy appliances, look for the Energy Star seal from the Environmental Protection Agency. Buy good quality appliances and other items. Maintain them. Cheap appliances fail sooner, creating more junk.
Stop junk mail (catalogue, brochures, and other advertising appeals) you do not want. To do so check out sites like 'Consumer Assistance (DMA)'.
Don't use throwaway items when you can use permanent ones. For example, drink from ceramic cups/mugs instead of paper/single-use cups.
Make cleaning rags out of your old clothes and save on paper towels/napkins.

RECYCLE:

If your community recycles metal, be sure to wash out and recycle cans. This lessens strip mining air pollution, and use of energy to manufacturing new cans.
Recycle glass and plastic. Buy cooking oil in glass (the plastic used in bottles for cooking oil can produce pollutants when manufactured). Your recycling company will specify what plastic containers can be recycled - often only beverage containers.
Do not throw away glass that cannot be recycled in the glass recycling bin. Window glass contains a contaminating chemical while the drinking glass has a different melting point than a bottle.
Recycle paper. However, be sure to remove the glossy advertisements from the newspaper.
Encourage your office to recycle white office paper.
Recycle old magazines, if possible, or pass them on to a friend, nursing home, school or library.
Recycle foam 'peanuts' at your mailing facility or when you next send a package.
Do not forget recyclable items like motor oil, tires and cars. Every year people dump enough used motor oil down sewers to equal 10 Exxon Alaskan spills.
Recycle your unwanted books by giving them to a library, school, church, thrift store. You can also donate them to organizations that send books to developing countries. Do a research on any such organization and contact them for more information.

About the Author

KiyaSama is an author on http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers.