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Green Facts
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A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.
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Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as 1,000,000 sea creatures every year.
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It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.
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Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.
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If every U.S. household turned the thermostat down by 10 degrees for seven hours each night during the cold months, and seven hours each weekday, it would prevent nearly gas emissions.
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Washing your clothes in cold or warm instead of hot water saves 500 pounds of carbon dioxide a year, and drying your clothes on a clothesline six months out of the year would save another 700 pounds.
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Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.
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Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
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Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.
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Due to tiger poaching, habitat destruction, and other human-tiger conflicts, tigers now number around 3,200—a decrease in population by about 70% from 100 years ago.
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Americans throw away enough aluminum to rebuild our entire commercial fleet of airplanes every 3 months
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A tree that provides a home with shade from the sun can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.
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In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you'll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.
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You will save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive if you always keep your car’s tires fully inflated.
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Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.
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A single quart of motor oil, if disposed of improperly, can contaminate up to 2,000,000 gallons of fresh water.
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Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.
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For every 38,000 bills consumers pay online instead of by mail, 5,058 pounds of greenhouse gases are avoided and two tons of trees are preserved.
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You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent bulb (CFL), over the life of the bulb.
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American workers spend an average of 47 hours per year commuting through rush hour traffic. This adds up to 23 billion gallons of gas wasted in traffic each year.
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Nudge your thermostat up two degrees in the summer and down two degrees in the winter to prevent 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
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Recycling 100 million cell phones can save enough energy to power 18,500 homes in the U.S. for a year.
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Bamboo absorbs 35% more carbon dioxide than equivalent stands of trees.
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Americans throw away more than 120 million cell phones each year, which contribute 60,000 tons of waste to landfills annually.
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States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.
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One recycled aluminum can will save enough energy to run a 100-watt bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, or a TV for 2 hours.
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You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.
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A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.
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77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.
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Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.
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Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.
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In California homes, about 10% of energy usage is related to TVs, DVRs, cable and satellite boxes, and DVD players.
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An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!
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Recycling for one year at Stanford University saved the equivalent of 33,913 trees and the need for 636 tons of iron ore, coal, and limestone.
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Turning off the tap when brushing your teeth can save as much as 10 gallons a day per person.
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Recycling 1 million laptop computers can save the amount of energy used by 3,657 homes in the U.S. over the course of a year.
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82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.
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The World Health Organization estimates that 2 million people die prematurely worldwide every year due to air pollution.
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Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.


We use high tech gadgets like cell phones all day, every day, but we almost never stop to ask questions about their environmental impact. For instance: Where do cell phones come from? What happens to all of the cell phones that we simply stop using when we move on to the...

So we know that plastic bags are bad. To this end, cities around the world are thinking of enacting plastic bag bans or taxes, and many people are now using reusable bags. Because of this increased attention, there are numerous facts and factoids being thrown around regarding...
We have our traditionalists, myself included, who want to preserve sacred past times like gathering around the fireplace with friends and family and reading a book or a newspaper in peace. Now, our world is cluttered with Facebook and Twitter...
It might sound strange to imagine drinking from a cup made of corn, or cutting your potatoes with a knife actually made from potatoes, but more and more people are adopting this practice—whether they know it or not. This is the new world of cups, plates and utensils made from bioplastics! Such items are composed of natural materials and therefore...
What is Hemp? Hemp is a plant of the Cannibus genus that can be grown in a large range of soil types, however it grows best in nitrogen-rich and non-acidic soil. Most importantly, hemp is one of the strongest fibers in the world! Luckily, it also grows quickly with very low pesticide usage, making it one of the more sustainable materials available...
We'd be walking down the street or through a park, holding our parent’s hand, and then we'd see it—the curve of a swing set, or the red, blues, and yellows of the monkey bars… and we set out running. Playgrounds teach kids invaluable lessons—how to share, move, imagine, and have fun! Today, as children become more sedentary and their opportunities...
With the world gradually turning its back on inefficient (incandescent) lighting, what should you use as a green replacement? The phasing out of incandescent light bulbs began several years ago with much of Europe banning incandescent bulbs in 2009. In the United States, incandescent light bulbs will begin to disappear in 2012, with nearly...
Bamboo is one of those plants that people seem to either love or hate. There are over 1,400 species of the grass around the world—900 species are tropical while 500 seek temperate climates. Over 80% of the world’s bamboo is located in Asia, with another 10% in both Africa and the Americas. Bamboo’s claim to fame is definitely its speed...
Planet Earth is teeming with phones. There are about 5 billion cellular phones in use right now, and 500 million of them—10 percent—are smartphones. Unfortunately, these numbers are swelling. The United Nations expects the number of smartphones to quadruple to 2 billion in just four years. At each stage of its lifecycle, a smartphone...
On average, a woman uses over 16,000 tampons in her lifetime. This staggering statistic begs the question—what are all of these feminine products doing to the health of our planet and our bodies?! Let’s take a closer look at the ingredients that conventional tampons and sanitary napkins contain...
Now that Thanksgiving has past and we are well recovered from our food comas, it’s time to start thinking about your holiday gift-giving! When thinking of purchasing decorations and gifts this year try to be more environmentally responsible in what you choose to buy...
Electronics are finding their way into more and more households across the world. They can be used as tools or as toys, for work or for pleasure. Sometimes they come in the form of a large flat-screen TV, other times they can be as small as a pocket-sized iPod. Often, electronics allow us to perform tasks more efficiently, communicate with...
Can rock go green? You’ve evaluated your transport, your diet, and your electricity usage. What about your musical equipment? Following the warmest ever documented decade, it is obvious that every decision you make has environmental implications—even the decision to rock. Here are some of the latest developments in eco-friendly guitars...
Throughout the past couple of years, “Eco Products” have taken over. From soaps to computers to billboards, most companies look for a way to advertize their “green” efforts. While walking through an isle in the grocery store one afternoon, I wondered, are all these so called “eco products” true in their claims? My skepticism was validated...
There is so much hype behind anything organic these days, organic food, organic cosmetics, organic babies, literally everything is becoming pesticide-free, all natural, eco-hype. Another a recently trendy organic must-have is organic clothing. Swedish clothing company H&M, which possesses lines from fashion-celebrity bigwigs like Madonna...
Corporations everywhere are looking for a way out of significantly reducing their carbon emissions. Populations are demanding emission cut backs and during every political election new initiatives emerge that aim to cut big business' use of dirty fuels. Some companies have argued that environmental standards are too harsh, that the bar is set...
The holiday season presents a huge list of things to think about: travel, gift giving, meal planning, and so forth. If you have children or are buying a gift for a child this year, you may also want to think about whether or not the toy you are considering may be toxic. Yes… toxic! Among the many threats that toys present, namely, choking hazards...
With Thanksgiving soon approaching, gift-giving season is just around the corner. Many retailers say that “Black Friday”, the Friday after Thanksgiving, is their biggest shopping day of the year; while others see the largest sales increase the Saturday before Christmas. Regardless, we are soon to embark on one of the spendiest times of the...
People always seem to be talking about organic-this and organic-that, and all it really seems like people know about the word “organic” is that it represents something void of pesticides, that it is beaming with natural goodness, or it is somehow yoga-related. And yes, these things are true—except for maybe the yoga thing—but there is another reason to...
With the green movement taking over the production world, selling everything from toxin-free lamp shades to organic jeans, morphing your bathroom into an environmentally friendly zone is relatively simple. Greening your bathroom is not only good for the environment, but it is also great for your and your family’s health...
My mother always taught me that good habits are important to incorporate into children’s lives at an early age, even if they are not old enough to always remember them. So why not start them off green? Regular baby products, clothing, and food can all be replaced with more environmentally friendly products that will not only help reduce you...
One baby will use thousands of diapers in a single year. How to dispose of all that waste is a confusing decision for parents trying to live green. When I was changing my kids’ diapers, almost every mom I talked to felt guilty about adding to the landfill, but we threw up our collective hands—what to do? Cloth diapers just seemed so...
If you are looking for some interesting, easy, and fun reading this summer on ways to live green, I have a couple of suggestions for you. Please remember, though, that though books and magazines are chock full of ideas to conserve energy, make healthier choices, and use less chemicals, it can get overwhelming if you try to do it all at once...
With the rise of the green movement, it is of little surprise that green attention has made its way into the fashion industry. Fashion, in a broad sense, is a social concept that inhabits many areas of thinking and human activity. It refers to the styles that make up a culture. It is a major industry. Fortunately, in such a large and active...
Tis the time of the year to bring out your paint can! As summer approaches,many people will use this opportunity to enjoy the warmer weather, take avacation, and finally tackle that long awaited home improvement. If re-painting your house, whether that be interior or exterior, is on the list, there are several steps to note to keep this process...
As our demand for energy continuously increases,it is important to start looking for alternatives to our current sources of energy. One quick and easy way to start cutting your individual energy consumption is by switching the incandescent light bulbs in your home to CFLs, or compact fluorescent light bulbs. Not only are CFLs an effective...