Pittsburgh is just a Tupperware kind of town that eats leftovers -- a good thing according to new study that ranks 25 U.S. metropolitan areas based on the least wasteful behavior of their residents.

The study released yesterday by the reusable plastic bottle maker Nalgene rates Pittsburgh the 14th least wasteful city overall based on polling in 23 behavioral categories from using rain barrels (16th) and recycling (13th) to buying second-hand clothes (11th) and saving leftovers to eat (7th).

Pittsburgh's highest ranking was 4th for using reusable food containers. Its only worst in the nation ranking was for driving on trips that are less than two miles from home.

San Francisco led the way in many of the 23 ranking categories and was best among the 25 metro areas overall in recycling, reusing wrapping paper, turning off the water when brushing teeth and not using cars for short trips. Others in the least wasteful top five are New York City, Portland, Ore., Seattle and Los Angeles.

"This study highlights habits that our society has adopted out of convenience, but on a whole can have a huge impact on the sustainability of the planet," said Eric Hansen, senior business manager of Nalgene-Outdoor. "Clearly some cities are ahead of others when it comes to changing our approach to wastefulness in our actions big and small, but there's room for all to improve."

Philadelphia ranked 10th and Cleveland 16th even though it was ranked first in borrowing books from the library. Boston and New York ranked last and next to last in buying used clothes. Portland is best at second-hand shopping.

The bottom five metropolitan areas are St. Louis, Houston, Indianapolis, Dallas and Atlanta.

The rankings were based on phone poll responses from 3,750 individuals that gauged behavior on waste, sustainability efforts, shopping habits, transportation and reusing items. The study was commissioned by Nalgene as part of its FilterForGood campaign, a partnership with Brita water filters to encourage less wasteful behavior.

The study found that changes to less wasteful behaviors need to be easy, and convenient and save individuals money. Most people, for example, will eat leftovers, turn out lights when they leave a room, turn off water when they brush their teeth, use energy efficient light bulbs and recycle on a regular basis.

But for many people convenience wins out over prudent environmental behavior for such things like using a rain barrel, composting, taking public transportation and driving personal vehicles on short trips.

Sixty-three percent of the study respondents said they were already living a somewhat eco-friendly lifestyle, and 85 percent said they plan on becoming more environmentally conscious in the next year.