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Green Facts
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Refrigerators built in 1975 used 4 times more energy than current models.
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Glass can be recycled over and over again without ever wearing down.
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Every week about 20 species of plants and animals become extinct.
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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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Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.
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77% of people who commute to work by car drive alone.
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Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans every day.
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You’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle.
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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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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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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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Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch.
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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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A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces related water pollution, air pollution, and mining wastes by about 70%.
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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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Less than 1% of electricity in the United States is generated from solar power.
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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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82 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from burning fossil fuels.
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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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An aluminum can that is thrown away instead of recycled will still be a can 500 years from now!
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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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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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A laptop consumes five times less electricity than a desktop computer.
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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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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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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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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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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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Shaving 10 miles off of your weekly driving pattern can eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year.
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Current sea ice levels are at least 47% lower than they were in 1979.
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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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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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States with bottle deposit laws have 35-40% less litter by volume.
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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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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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It takes 6,000,000 trees to make 1 year's worth of tissues for the world.
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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.


Community gardens are pieces of land that are managed and gardened by a group of people. These plots of land can be found in urban, rural, or suburban areas and can be found anywhere from a school, hospital, or within a local neighborhood. Most community gardens grow fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs for the people involved, or they can...

The 2010 World Green Roof Congress goes to London this September! Green roofs have been a subject of conversation in the environmental world for a long time. They have the ability to change a bland, unused, rooftop, into a beautiful, lush, exciting, and green space secretly tucked into an urban atmosphere. 2010 has been a great year for...
The cold winter months tend to be the time of the year that most people wrap up their spring and summer gardens. However, the fall and winter months can provide many opportunities to continue gardening and make your soil even more fertile for future growing seasons. Whether you want to grow winter edibles...
Last week I was on my roof, industriously squeezing caulk along the vinyl siding on the upstairs dormer windows. October in Indiana – the red maples were aglow, the skies were deep blue, and it was not cold, but cool enough to need a jacket. Leaf rot scented the air. I enjoy caulking. Not just because it’s a home repair I can actually...
The use of a conventional fireplace still leads to harmful smoke, fumes and other indoor air pollutants – definitely something to consider if you have pets or children. Traditional open fireplaces burn very inefficiently and produce hundreds of chemical compounds, including carbon monoxide, organic gases, particulates, and some of the same...
While most people love the concept of a glass house, they have one major problem with it - privacy. But there’s a simple solution – curtains. Lightweight curtains would provide both shade during summer months as well as privacy, without compromising the structure’s aesthetic appeal. But what a lot of people also don’t...
It might be odd to think about, but the delicious food on your plate is closely linked to the environment. Grains, meat, fruit, vegetables, and nuts once grew in the wild as part of a natural, complex ecosystem. Although these vital ingredients still fuel modern society, the process of getting our food has changed drastically. Most urban dwellers...
The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that people spend 90% of their time indoors, but that indoor air quality can be two to five times more polluted than outdoor air. Whether in your home or business, follow these 10 easy steps to ensuring you have the cleanest indoor air possible. Don't Allow Smoking Indoors - There is no safe level...
Today’s the day to plant my garden tomatoes. I’m yearning for that home-grown taste! You say you have no room for a garden? No problem. With six hours of sunlight, you can grow tomatoes on a balcony or patio with ease. A few rules apply to growing container tomatoes. Choose a small, compact variety to fit your space; often the label will...
It was a suburban gardener’s worst nightmare: a grub as big as a toddler! Thank goodness it was just part of the Chicago Field Museum’s new Underground exhibit, in which visitors “shrink” to 1/100ths of their normal size and experience soil up close and personal. Tree roots as big around as tree trunks. Gigantic crayfish lurking in corners...
Remember the Victory Gardens of World War II? The term nowadays is “Recession Garden,” as more people are gardening to supplement their food sources. Our circumstances are remarkably similar to the 1940’s: we’re at war, we’re self-rationing because of job loss and rising costs, and we’re trying to stay hopeful despite bad news about Wall...
Speaking of new habits, recently I switched to milder, less-toxic household cleaning products to reduce my family’s exposure to scary chemicals. Marketing messages for today’s commercial products shout that the only good germ is a dead germ! But average American homes don’t need to be as sterilized as the Centers for Disease Control. Some...
It is the most positive form of vandalizing to date. Volunteers clandestinely transforming patches of ugly weeded or trashed parcels of urban land into sustainable gardens of native plants. The idea behind this revolution, called “guerrilla gardening,” is to renovate small scraps of industrial land to enhance street-side beauty as well as...
In order to answer this question, we must first answer the question: why recycle at all? The Air Defenders' Glossary defines recycling as “Physically or chemically changing an item into a new item for reuse.” Composting can be considered a form of recycling. After all, the plant matter in a compost pile undergoes both physical...
As the summer approaches, we begin to look forward to the mouth watering taste of local fresh fruits and vegetables. Even if you do not have a farm or garden of your own, there are many ways to access locally grown fresh produce. For example, you can become a member of a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). In the United States, this concept...
From street level the Chicago City Hall looks like any other urban building: grey, rectangular, and concrete. From the roof, it is transformed into a magical garden amidst a towering jungle of steel and cement. In cities across the nation green roofs are transforming urban landscapes, lowering building energy needs, and combating rising urban...