Happy Earth Day everyone!! What have you done lately to help out our environment?? Do you recycle? It is important and easy to do so if you don't already make today the day that you start.
REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE!!
Here are some fun facts:
*If every home in America replaced just one incandescent light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified CFL, in one year it would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes and prevent greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those of more than 800,000 cars.
*40 million water bottles are used every day and only 15% are recycled
*Using reusable shopping bags can save the average American 300 to 700 plastic shopping bags per year, which will save 3 to 7 gallons of crude oil. A population of 100,000 can save up to 14,000 barrels of oil per year using reusable bags.
* 27% of the newspapers produced in America are recycled.
* Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!
* Every month, we throw out enough glass bottles and jars to fill up a giant skyscraper. All of these jars are recyclable!
* The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can run a 100-watt light bulb for four hours. It also causes 20% less air pollution and 50% less water pollution than when a new bottle is made from raw materials.
* A modern glass bottle would take 4000 years or more to decompose -- and even longer if it's in the landfill.
* To produce each week's Sunday newspapers, 500,000 trees must be cut down.
*Recycling a single run of the Sunday New York Times would save 75,000 trees.
* If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year!
* An aluminum can that is thrown away will still be a can 500 years from now!
* Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for three hours -- or the equivalent of a half a gallon of gasoline
