Good Housekeeping magazine's May edition says it's possible to do one's spring cleaning in 10 minutes a day. In a month, says cleaning maven Heloise, you should be done. Along the way, she makes these suggestions: Shop before you mop (get together a cleaning toolkit, right); and try her recipe for a paste for getting a stain out of the bathtub (mix 1/4 cup dishwashing powder with enough water to make a paste; stir with a nonmetal utensil like a chopstick, then apply to the stain and scrub lightly, and let set for 20 minutes before rinsing well).

— Advertiser Staff

SAVE THE PLANET

EASY WAYS TO GO GREEN

Industry watchers have coined a new term: "greenwashing" — when manufacturers feign interest but don't really change. "Everybody's confused about what's green, what's not," said Diane MacEachern, author of "Big Green Purse" (Avery, $17.95). So she came up with www.biggreenpurse.com, a new site that teaches eco-shopping strategies. The book and site include ways you can afford to go green. Tip one: use a sponge instead of paper towels.

— Advertiser Staff

FINAL WORD

"I would greatly prefer to see these issues come up from reporters and editors and not from CEOs when, my guess is, they are much more concerned about marketing and demographics than they are about news judgment."

Dan Fagin | director of the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting program at New York University, on media companies pushing a green agenda