The developing world takes a beating from the environmental crowd. Poor pollution controls, deforestation, rapid population growth. The scene can be pretty ugly.

But I'd like to rescue a baby from the bath water. There are a few things we in the West can learn from our fellow planeteers in less affluent communities about being more efficient. From the streets to the bathrooms, the need for efficiency and an aversion to waste makes people in poorer countries better consumers of resources. Not perfect, but maybe some lessons here at least worth discussing.

My top 5:

1) Water heaters. How many water heaters do you own? At least one, I'm sure, and likely two if you have a jacuzzi or several showers. After all, it's our God-given right to have hot water on demand. But prepare to take a shower in Ghana or India, where we traveled this summer, and you'll need to flip the switch on the water heater in the bathroom and then wait a few minutes. (Side note: Our family still laughs about the hotel room in Ghana where we didn't know about the heater and poor Joseph took his nippy shower before we discovered it.)

The thinking, of course: Why would anyone possibly heat water and continuously keep it hot unless they were ready to use it? How inefficient and wasteful. Maybe thinking ahead 10 minutes is tricky, but I think clever Americans could make this work.

2) Leaf blowers. When I returned from India 3 weeks ago, it took less than half an hour for a conversation I was having to interrupted by the toxic, deafening sound of leaf blowers. Apparently, we Americans can't stand leaves or brush anywhere near our homes, even during the summer when few leaves fall. There are many days I can't write on our screened porch because the noise is so persistent.

In the developing world, the solution is called ... brooms. Often they don't have handles and often they are propelled by a worker on his or her haunches. At the end of the process, a radical invention called the dustpan becomes a tool of choice. No ear plugs needed. In poor countries, it's a method of employment for the working class. But here, we'd rather pay additional unemployment benefits to the unemployed 10% of our population than have people stoop that low (pun fully intended).

3) Central air. My house thermostat is set to 77 during the day and 78 at night. It cools the entire house, including a whole passel of rooms we're not in. During the day, I work alone from home. At night, we sleep only in the bedrooms. Yet, our system cools (or heats) the entire house in the name of ease and simplicity. (I realize that many systems have zones, but I'm wondering how many people tweak those settings often.) Wouldn't it be more efficient to cool the rooms we are in? Or is sweating for a minute that onerous?

4) Bottle reuse. In the West, we've begun to focus on recycling just about everything we can. The largest proponent might be my hometown neighbor, Coca-Cola, which has a huge recycling effort. Why the big push? Certainly one main reasons is that being a big player in recycling keeps pressure off to do what we should be doing: Reusing the bottle. After all, it's not broken, it's empty.

A friend from Coke tells me that a huge percentage of consumers drink their soda or water in the same place they buy it. Just return the bottle. Clean it, refill it, reuse it.

5) Old cars. Sure, they aren't quite as energy efficient, but the clunkers that many developing-world drivers (often cabbies) take onto the roads can be remarkably environmentally sound anyway. After all, they aren't throwing away products that still have use. In Ghana, for instance, old cars and lorries are salvaged from Western nations and used for another decade or more; Ghanaians love that they have fewer complicated electronics and more easy-to-fix mechanicals. And I learned from a Dutch friend that people in Holland are thrilled not to have to pay a disposal fee for their junked vehicle.

Our infatuation with shiny new objects has turned us into wasteful consumers. So has our "have it now" culture. Maybe it's time to learn a little something from folks that have less.

What's your view?