Here are five easy tips for greening your pet:

1. Spay today. Some 3,000 kittens and puppies are born every hour in the U.S. each year. As many as 8 million unwanted dogs and cats wind up at animal shelters and about 4 million of them are euthanized annually because no one will adopt them. What do the numbers have to do with the environment? Pet overpopulation is cruel to animals -- and bad for the earth, too. Feral and abandoned pets suffer hunger and disease, foul waterways with their feces, and chase away or kill wildlife. Spaying is the best thing you can do to solve what many experts call a pet overpopulation crisis. Spaying is affordable, kind, and helps animals and nature in equal measure.

2. Green the chow. You won't see these ingredients on the label, but conventional pet foods contain earth-hurting (and dangerous) additives like pesticides, herbicides and hormones. If you see "meat or poultry byproducts" or "reconstituted animal byproducts" on pet food packaging, what you could be getting is waste material from slaughterhouses, including hair and blood. Some pet foods even contain byproducts from "4D" animals: the dead, diseased, dying, or disabled. Buy natural organic pet foods. They're produced in eco-friendly ways and free of harmful chemicals, additives, and drugs.

3. Go natural. Your pooch and kitty don't need accessories made of vinyl, a major environmental evil (and instantly shred-able, to boot). Instead, pick up the natural alternatives, made with organic ingredients and produced in sustainable ways. Today's marketplace is filled with dozens of green organic dog products and cat items, including everything from treats and beds to kitty litter and chews for that gnaw-happy puppy.

4. No pile left behind. Dog poop is, well, a mess. Left ignored, it winds up on people's shoes, spreads germs and runs into storm sewers and local waterways. And, depending on where you live, leaving it behind can get you fined. So make sure to pick turds up -- in a biodegradable bag. (You'll find loads of green poop bags in stores and online, including some that might even be safe to flush down the toilet.) Avoid using conventional plastic bags, which only preserve the waste longer at the local landfill.

5. Here, kitty, kitty. Many cat litters are made from non-biodegradable bentonite clay, which involves eco-damaging strip mining. Even worse, when cats lick their fur and paws they can wind up ingesting silica dust, a carcinogen that can cause lung disease, digestive blockages, and other health problems. What can you do? Use natural, biodegradable litters made with pine or other materials that don't harm health.

Courtesy of SustainLane.com.