FACTS THAT MAY HURT

• 5% Of The World's People Consume 1/3 Of Its Resources And Make Nearly 1/2 The Waste. That 5% Is The USA
• There are 70 pesticides that are listed as known or probable carcinogens, based on animal testing. Of those 70, 44 are in use today, and 23 are used on our food."

  — Gina Solomon, specialist in internal medicine [2001]

"Over 42 billion pounds of agricultural petrochemicals are applied each year on US food crops - and often less than 1% of those pesticides reach the target pest. The rest goes into the ecosystem, making agriculture the largest water polluter in the US. Buy organic." Earth Day Network

 "If only one percent of car owners in this country left their vehicles home just one day a week, it would save an estimated 42 million gallons of gas a year. It would also keep 840 million pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere."  Earth Day Network

Did you know that America’s total yearly waste could fill a convoy of garbage trucks long enough to wrap around the Earth six times and reach halfway to the moon (120,000 more miles)?! 

• The U.S. is the #1 trash-producing country in the world at 1,609 pounds per person per year. This means that 5% of the world's people generate 40% of the world's waste!  Boooo!

• 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!

• One tree can filter up to 60 pounds of pollutants from the air each year.

• We fill 63,000 garbage trucks every day in this country-lined up they would stretch 400 miles. (Nat’l Audubon Society, 1994)

• If every household in the U.S. reused a paper grocery bag for one shopping trip, about 60,000 trees would be saved. (S.C. Office of Solid Waste Reduction, 1996)

• Everyday Americans buy 62 million newspapers and throw out 44 million. That’s the equivalent of dumping 500,000 trees into a landfill every week.

• It takes 75,000 trees to print a Sunday Edition of the New York Times.

• If we recycled all of the newspapers for one Sunday, we would save 550,000 trees or about 26 millions trees per year. (CA Dept of Conservation, 1995)

• Each of us generates on average 4.4 pounds of waste per day per person.

• The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will operate a 100-watt light bulb for four hours.

• Every year each American household receives an average of 1.5 tree's growth of bulk mail advertising commonly known as "junk mail."

• One ton of recycled paper uses: 64% less energy, 50% less water, 74% less air pollution, saves 17 trees and creates 5 times more jobs than one ton of paper products from virgin wood pulp.

• Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 trees (35’ tall), 2 barrels of oil (enough fuel to run the average car for 1260 miles or from Dallas to Los Angeles), 4100 kilowatts of energy (enough power for the average home for 6 months), 3.2 cubic yards of landfill space (one family size pick-up truck) and 60 pounds of air pollution. (Trash to Cash, 1996)

• Recycling aluminum saves 95% of the energy used to make the material from scratch. That means you can make 20 cans out of recycled material with the same amount of energy it takes to make one can out of new material. Energy savings in 1993 alone were enough to light a city the size of Pittsburgh for six years.

• The U.S. is the #1 trash-producing country in the world at 1,609 pounds per person per year. This means that 5% of the world's people generate 40% of the world's waste.
   
• More than 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of tinfoil. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.

• One recycled aluminum can saves enough electricity to operate a TV for three hours.
• Every eight months, 10.9 gallons of oil run into the oceans form our streets and driveways – that’s equal to one Exxon Valdez spill!
• In one week, a 3,000-passenger cruise ship generates 210,000 gallons of sewage, 1 million gallons of gray water (shower, sink, dishwashing water), 37,000 gallons of oily bilge water, eight tons of solid waste and millions of gallons of ballast water containing invasive plant and animal species.  This waste is dumped anywhere beyond three miles from shore!
• Non-biodegradable cigarette butts are the number 1 debris item found during beach clean-ups.  Cigarette butts are deadly to wildlife that eat the filters, mistaking them for food.
• 100,000 marine mammals and 2 million sea birds die every year after ingesting or being caught in plastic debris.
• The most pesticide-laden crops are #1=coffee #2=cotton #3=tobacco.  If you use these, buy them organic.

• A shower can use 25 to 50 gallons of water.
• To grow an acre of cotton takes 800,000 gallons of water.
• Leaving the water running while brushing your teeth can waste up to 5 gallons
• It takes 35 gallons of water to grow, irrigate, process, and cook 1 serving of rice.
• A faucet that drips 60 times in one minute would waste over 6 gallons of water a day; that's 2,400 gallons a year.
• Automatic dishwashers use about 15 gallons a load.
• The average full-tub bath takes 36 gallons.
• It takes 65 gallons of water to process 1 glass of milk.
• 39,000 gallons of water are used to manufacture a new car.
• One flush of a toilet uses as much water as the average person in the developing world uses in one day.