Raising Awareness: Our Impact On The Earth
Just to get us all thinking about our impact on the Earth…Here are some statistics from The Clean Air Council.
*In the U.S., 4.39 pounds of trash per day and up to 56 tons of trash per year are created by the average person. Only about one-tenth of all solid garbage in the United States gets recycled.
*Each day the United States throws away enough trash to fill 63,000 garbage trucks. Americans throw away 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour.
*Americans throw away enough aluminum cans to rebuild our commercial air fleet every three months, and enough iron and steel to supply all our nation’s automakers every day. Throwing away one aluminum can wastes as much energy as if that can were 1/2 full of gasoline. Sixty-five billion aluminum soda cans are used each year. Recycling an aluminum soda can saves 96% of the energy used to make a can from ore, and produces 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution.
*U.S. businesses now use about 21 million tons of paper every year. That’s about 175 pounds of paper for each American. America is home to 5% of the world’s population, yet it consumes 1/3 of the Earth’s timber and paper; making paper the largest part of the waste stream at 37.5% of the total waste stream. One ton of paper from recycled pulp saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 7,000 gallons of water, 4,200 kilowatt hours (enough to heat your home for half year), 390 gallons of oil, and prevents 60 pounds of air pollutants.
*Enough hazardous waste is generated in one year to fill the New Orleans Superdome 1,500 times over.
*As of 1992, 14 billion pounds of trash were dumped into the ocean annually around the world.
*Forty-three thousand tons of food is thrown out in the United States each day.
*The average American, in one lifetime, uses: 18 tons of paper, 23 tons of wood, 16 tons of metal, and 32 tons of organic chemicals.
Let’s all consider what we can do to change these staggering statistics and make the Earth a better place for our children!!
