Pro-Planet : Environment: J. C. Cooper opened the Earth Store to help save the planet. She sells everything from recycled motor oil to dolphin-free deep sea tuna.

You say you’re trying to be environmentally conscious by recycling and trying not to use your car so much, but you end up driving all over town anyway looking for environmentally correct products.

Well, park that gas-guzzler and take the bus, ride your bike or walk to the Earth Store, believed by local environmentalists to be L.A.’s first “environmental products center.”

The center recently opened in the Westside--where else--and is offering products such as recycled tissue and toilet paper, radon detection kits, recycled motor oil, fluorescent lights (which use less power), and even a home videotape on how to save the Earth.

Store owner J. C. Cooper, a former local television newscaster who most recently owned an art gallery in Beverly Hills, said she decided to open her small shop after visiting what she described as a “dying forest” in Oregon last fall. “I found out the planet was dying, and if I wanted to help save it I had to start with myself,” Cooper said.

Cooper, who is married and the mother of a 21-year-old daughter, said she searched without much luck for products that “have protection of our fragile planet in mind.” So, she got a second mortgage on her West Hollywood house and opened her own store on Westwood Boulevard just north of Pico Boulevard in August.

Besides selling phosphate-free household cleaning products, unbleached coffee filters, dolphin-free deep sea tuna and “Rain Forest Crunch,” a mixture of cashews and Brazilian nuts, Cooper hopes her store will become a center for information on the environment.

There are books for sale, including the Complete Guide to Environmental Careers, but there is also free literature on such groups as Greenpeace, the Rainforest Action Network, the Sierra Club, the Cousteau Society and Zero Population Growth.

There is also a community bulletin board where groups can announce meetings, post newspaper clippings of the latest environmental findings and list the latest boycotts of products they claim are unsafe.

In recent weeks, Cooper has been running a videotape promoting the virtues of Proposition 128, the sweeping environmental initiative known as “Big Green” that, among other things, would create an environmental czar for the state.

Cooper, who declined to give her age, acknowledges that her Westside location was selected because of the area’s yuppie demographics. Being an environmentalist is not always cheap.

Glycerin soap is $1.50 a bar (with part of the proceeds going to the “Save the Whales” group), a tube of natural toothpaste (meaning it is made without chemicals) is $3.45, natural mouthwash is $5.95 and a natural deodorant (“controls odor with natural ingredients”) costs $5.35.

T-shirts with silk-screened messages calling for an end to global warming or saying “Recycling Ends Extinction” range from $10.98 to $18.95. Gas masks, which Cooper says many of her customers buy to make a statement about the area’s air pollution, go for $24.95, and a Greenpeace license plate holder costs $9.98.

The 60-minute “Save the Earth: A How-To Video,” sells for $19.95 (15% of profits go to environmental groups), and offers household tips to save the planet. Among the suggestions are use your car as little as possible and reduce use of power. “Do we really need electric toothbrushes, electric knives, electric can openers?” actor Jere Burns of TV’s “Dear John” asks on the tape.

Cooper says that saving the planet, not making money, is her primary motivation.

“I really care about the planet,” she said. “It’s a glorious place.”