- Recycling saves energy: Creating a new aluminum can from scratch takes 95% more energy than making a can from recycled aluminum.
- Swapping 16 incandescent bulbs for compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) saves emissions equivalent to taking a car off the road for a year.
- A leaky faucet can waste up to 20 gallons of water per day, and a leaking toilet can waste up to 200 gallons a day.
- If you replace just one out of four of your light bulbs with fluorescents, you can save about 50% on your lighting bill.
- Refrigerators use 14% of an average U.S. home's electricity. Replacing a 20-year-old refrigerator with a new, energy-efficient model reduces an average home's CO2 contribution by about 1 ton per year while saving about $65 annually on the electric bill.
- More than 80% of the most commonly-used pesticides today have been classified by National Academy of Sciences researchers as potentially carcinogenic, and are routinely found in mothers' milk.
- More than one billion people, or 1 out of every 6 people, lack access to a safe supply of drinking water. Diseases associated with the lack of clean water are leading cause of death in the world.
- Over its lifetime, a 40-mpg car will save $3,000 in fuel costs compared to a 20-mpg car.
- A family of four using low-flow showerheads instead of full-flow models can save about 20,000 gallons of water per year.
- Daily building operation (lighting, electricity, heating, and cooling of homes, offices, and schools) accounts for more than one-third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions.
- Keep your head out of the refrigerator and the door closed! The refrigerator is the single biggest energy-consuming kitchen appliance.
- Paper products are bleached to make them whiter and brighter. The chlorine used in many bleaching processes contributes to the formation of harmful chemicals that wind up in our air and water and are highly toxic to people and fish.
- 55% of our trash goes to landfills, 14% is burned, and 31% is recycled.
- The removable roof rack on a car can reduce fuel economy by as much as 5%.
- The polar ice cap is now melting at the alarming rate of 9% per decade. Arctic ice thickness has almost halved since the 1960s.
- Since 1980, the earth has experienced 19 of its 20 hottest years on record, with 2005 and 1998 tied for the hottest and 2002 and 2003 coming in second and third.
- Half of the forests that originally covered 48% of the Earth's land surface are gone. Only 1/5th of the Earth's original forests remain pristine and undisturbed.
- Manufacturing just 17 new cars uses enough water to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
- Air pollution from cars, factories and power plants is a major cause of asthma attacks.
- Making a ton of paper from recycled stock saves up to 17 trees and uses 50% less water than making paper from virgin fiber.
More facts.
