Green Living

The impact we have on the environment in our day-to-day lives might just surprise you. The facts below will help put it into perspective.

• Paper makes up of 36% of our solid waste! The burning of paper gives off air pollution, while the recycling of paper cuts our waste load over a third, and saves forests.
• About 80% of what Americans throw away is recyclable, yet our recycling rate is just 28%. - Environmental Protection Agency
• Recycling creates 6 times as many jobs as landfilling. - Colorado Recycles
  
  
• The energy saved each year by steel recycling is equal to the electrical power used by 18 million homes each year - or enough energy to last Los Angeles residents for eight years. - Steel Recycling Institute
• If every household in the U.S. replaced just one roll of 1,000 sheet virgin fiber bathroom tissues with 100% recycled ones, we could save: 373,000 trees, 1.48 million cubic feet of landfill space, and 155 million gallons of water. - Seventh Generation Co.
• If every newspaper printed just for one Sunday edition for the New York Times were to be recycled, we would save 75,000 trees.
• By recycling all of your newspapers for one year, you alone can save four trees, 2200 gallons of water, and fifteen pounds of air pollutants!
• Energy saved from one recycled aluminum can will operate a TV set for 3 hours, and is the equivalent to half a can of gasoline.
• One CFL contains a hundred times less mercury than is found in a single dental amalgam filling or old-style glass thermometer, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
• A switch to CFLs would save an average household about 50 U.S. dollars a year in electricity bills, according to government estimates.
• A study of apple farming published in the April 19, 2001, issue of Nature has found organic orchards can be more profitable, produce tastier fruit at similar yields compared to conventional farming, and be better for the environment.