Did You Know?

Global Warming

• 15 of the top 16 warmest years have all occurred since 2000. March 2016 was the hottest month on record, making it the 11th month in a row of global high temperature records. 
• Almost half of the greenhouse gases emitted from the average home comes from driving our family vehicles. One very easy way to lessen the impact is not to let your vehicle idle. If you are going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds, turn off your engine, except in traffic. Idling your vehicle for more than 10 seconds uses more fuel than it would take to restart your engine. On cold mornings, excessive idling is not necessary as a vehicle engine only requires 20 seconds of running time in order to circulate the engine oil. So remember, turning off your engine saves gas AND the environment!

Waste

• Americans represent 5% of the world's population, but generate 30% of the world's garbage.
• Americans throw away enough garbage everyday to fill 63,000 garbage trucks, which if lined up end to end for an entire year would stretch halfway to the moon (http://students.arch.utah.edu/courses).

Recycling

• Recycling is more popular than voting in America.
• You can return plastic bags, such as newspaper delivery and grocery bags to drop-off sites at your local supermarket for recycling.
• One ton of paper from recycled pulp saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 7,999 gallons of water, 4.200 kilowatt hours (enough to heat your home for half a year), 390 gallons of oil, and prevents 60 pounds of air pollutants.
• Producing a soda can from aluminum uses 95% less energy than manufacturing a can from ore and produces 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution.
• Recycling just one aluminum can save enough energy to power a television for three hours
• By recycling one ton of glass, we save the equivalent of nine gallons of fuel

Forests/Trees

• It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday Edition of the New York Times
• Every year, Americans drink more than 400 million cups of coffee per day, equivalent to 146 billion cups per year.  If you purchase just one cup in a disposable cup every day, you will create approximately  23 pounds of waste per year.

Other facts:

• 140 billion gallons of gasoline a year are consumed by Americans according to the US Energy Department (2015).
• In 2010, Americans wasted (land filled, incinerated, or littered) almost 2 out of every 3 beverage bottles and cans sold    (153 billion wasted out of 243 billion sold.)  In 2010, of the 700 bottles sold per person, 400 were wasted and 300 were recycled as reported by the Container Recycling Institute, Bottled Up report, 2010. 
• In the United States, over 100,000 aluminum cans are recycled each minute, amounting to over 53 billion cans recycled in 2010.  However, over $1.1 billion in aluminum cans were wasted in 2010 according to Waste Not Project.org
• Recycling one ton of steel conserves 2,500 pounds of iron ore, 1,400 pounds of coal and 120 pounds of limestone.  In 2009, Americans threw away 10.39 million tons of steel which amounts to more than $3 billion in wasted material, an amount equal to purchasing lunch for everyone in the United States according to Waste Not Project.org
• Did you know that artificial turf playing fields provide a good, green alternative to grass as it does not require fertilizer or pesticide-intensive upkeep.