AVON — Ron Dehart feels a little beer envy when he heaves two weeks’ worth of Bud Light cans into the recycle bin on East Beaver Creek Boulevard.

“Well, we’ve got some Heineken here, some microbrews, some stuff I don’t know, lots of wine and a few boxes of Fat Tire bottles,” Dehart said, staring at the piles of glass, plastic and cans. “I wish I was drinking like that every night, ... but at least we’re all recycling.”

Aside from his bimonthly beer drops, Dehart tries to walk when possible, deciding he can do without his two-minute drives from Eagle-Vail to Avon.

“I do what I can,” Dehart said.

There’s a lot your average Joe can do for the environment, whether it’s taking a bus or building a certified green house. Here’s a sample of people you might know and what they’re doing to help the earth.

Who needs a car?

Bessy Kinsington has a car. She just doesn’t use it.

She walks to the supermarket and catches a bus back home. If she’s lucky, someone will help her carry the groceries.

She walks to the bank. She walks to Ti Amo for lunch. She walks to the recycling bins.

If she wants to ski in Vail, she bums a ride. In the morning, if she feels like it, she’ll go running instead.

Meanwhile, her car is still covered from the last snowfall. Hopefully, she said, it won’t get towed.

“I drove my car here from Nebraska, but I really needed it there,” Kinsington said. “Here, though, I’d just junk it if I was positive I would never need it again. But it’s so easy to get pulled back in.”

Her record as of Saturday is 25 days without driving. Her streak ended when she picked up her mother from Denver International Airport.

“Part of me wanted her to rent her own car,” Kinsington said. “But that’s still a car polluting the air. Might as well be nice and pick her up myself.”

Vail resident John Frey said he wishes he could kick his car addiction.

“I drive an SUV, and it doesn’t get the best mileage. I can admit that,” Frey said. “I can’t make myself get on a bus. It’s too slow, and I like to move fast. That may not be the best thing to say around here, but that’s how a lot of people are.”

On the job

Pat Campbell, owner of Campbell Construction in Avon, says the same thing every week to some of his employees: “Don’t you know we recycle that?”

They regularly recycle items like clean lumber and cardboard. When they remodel homes, they donate leftovers like torn-out cabinets and old lighting fixtures to Habitat for Humanity.

“There’s a tremendous amount of waste in the construction business, and I think more can be done about it,” Campbell said.

At his own home in Wildridge, Campbell is adding solar panels to offset some of his energy consumption and likes using a high-efficiency heating system.

“Houses can be just as bad as a company in giving off waste,” Campbell said. “There are things that everybody should do. I’m out here recycling, but so many people here don’t.”

It’s OK to be cold

It can be really chilly in Becky Kiser’s Wildridge home.

The temperature might drop, but she keeps the thermostat down. She’d rather let the sun do its work.

“We have a lot of windows, and the sun really warms up the house,” she said. “I guess you can call it passive solar energy.

The dishwasher sees action only when it’s full. Lights go out when she leaves a room. Kiser recycles regularly and prefers taking a bus to Vail.

All those little things help, she said, but she knows she can do more.

“I need to start taking my own cloth bag to City Market when I shop,” Kiser said.

Staff Writer Matt Terrell can be reached at 748-2955 or mterrell@vaildaily.com.