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Thread: 7 Easy Things That Make A BIG Difference For The Environment

  1. #1

    7 Easy Things That Make A BIG Difference For The Environment

    Easy Thing #1-Use reusable shopping bags instead of single-use plastic and paper bags
    *Each year, an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That's over one million plastic bags used per minute.
    *Only 1-3% of plastic bags are recycled worldwide.
    *Plastic bags can take up to 1,000 years to break down, so when an animal dies after ingesting a bag, the plastic re-enters the environment, posing a continuing threat to wildlife.
    *There is now six times more plastic debris in parts of the North Pacific Ocean than zooplankton.
    *At least 267 different species are known to have suffered from entanglement or ingestion of plastic marine debris.
    *The amount of petroleum used to make a plastic bag would drive a car about 115 metres. It would take only 14 bags to drive one mile!
    *The production of plastic bags requires petroleum and often natural gas and chemicals. Its production is toxic to the air.
    *3.5 million tons of plastic bags were discarded in 2008.
    *10% of plastic made every year will end up in the ocean.
    *During 2009's International Coastal Cleanup, the Ocean Conservancy found that plastic bags were the second-most common kind of waste found, at 1 out of ten items picked up and tallied.
    *Every year, Americans use approximately 1 billion shopping bags, creating 300,000 tons of landfill waste.
    *Approximately one billion sea turtles and marine mammals die each year by ingesting plastic bags. Not only that, these animals suffer a painful death. The plastic wraps around their intestines as they choke to death.
    *86% of all known species of sea turtles have had reported problems of entanglement or ingestion of marine debris.
    *Worldwide, 13-15,000 pieces of plastic are dumped into the ocean each day.
    *At least two thirds of the world's fish stocks are suffering from plastic ingestion.
    *According to the New York Times, the 100 billion plastic bags used per year in America require an estimated 12 million barrels of oil in their production.
    *Since approximately 25 percent of plastic bags used in the west are made in Asia, more fossil fuels have to be used to transport the bags to their destination.
    *Farmers report cows, sheep, and goats dying from ingestion of plastic bags.
    *Americans consume more than 10 billion paper bags per year. Approximately 14 million trees are cut down each year for paper bag production.
    *An estimated 4 billion plastic bags end up as litter each year globally--enough to circle the earth 63 times tied end to end!
    *Up to 47% of wind-borne litter escaping from landfills is plastic, mainly plastic bags. These end up in our forests, grasslands, waterways, and oceans. Approximately 80% of marine trash is swept by wind and rain off highways, streets, and landfills, down rivers and streams, and out to sea.
    *A sturdy, reusable bag will last for years, and only needs to be used 5 times to have a lower environmental impact than single-use bags.
    *Only 20% of paper bags get recycled.
    *Made with chemicals processed at high temperatures, paper bag production releases many toxins into the atmosphere at much the same rate as plastic production.
    *Over a lifetime, use of reusable bags by just one person will save over 22,000 plastic bags, saving enough petroleum to drive a car around 1,600 miles.
    *Plastic bags are said to be the most common manmade item seen by sailors at sea.
    *Four times more energy is used to manufacture paper bags than plastic bags.
    *98% more energy is used to recycle paper bags than plastic bags.
    *Paper bags create 70 percent more air pollutants than plastic bags.
    *Paper bags create 50 percent more water pollutants than plastic bags.

    Easy Thing #2-Celebrate Meatless Mondays And Eat Vegetarian At Least One Day A Week
    *Nearly half of the total amount of water used annually in the U.S. goes to grow feed and provide drinking water to cattle and other livestock.
    *The annual beef consumption of an average American family of four requires more than 260 gallons of fuel. The result is 2.5 tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, or about as much as the average car over a six month period.
    *According to some estimates, supplying the entire world with a western, meat-centered diet would deplete the planet's oil reserves within ten years.
    *85% of topsoil loss in the U.S. is the result of livestock production, with each pound of steak resulting in 35 pounds of eroded U.S. topsoil.
    *260 million acres of U.S. forests have been cleared to produce grain for livestock.
    *According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, more plant species in the United States have been eliminated by livestock grazing than any other cause.
    *Cows produce significant amounts of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, three gasses largely responsible for global warming. Through daily belching and flatulence, cows emit over twelve percent of the total methane released into the atmosphere each year.
    *According to the United Nations, raising animals for food(including land used for grazing and land used to grow feed crops) now uses a staggering 30 percent of the Earth's land mass.
    *According to scientists at the Smithsonian Institution, the equivalent of seven football fields of land is bulldozed worldwide every minute to create more room for farmed animals.
    *More than 70 percent of the grain and cereals that we grow in the US are fed to farmed animals.
    *It takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of meat.
    *Producing a single hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 20 miles and enough water for 17 showers.
    *Every second, animals raised for food in the U.S. produce 89,000 pounds of waste. That's 130 times more than is produced by the country's entire human population.
    *Animal agriculture uses 70 percent of the world's agricultural land.
    *Seventy percent of the leveled rain forests in the Amazon is used to raise animals for meat consumption.
    *56% of U.S. farmland is devoted to beef production.
    *It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce a single pound of California beef.
    *An international group of ecologists and economists warned that the world will run out of seafood by 2048.
    *According to the UNFAO, about 70 percent of our global marine fisheries are now being fished close to, already at, or beyond their capacity.
    *As many as 90 percent of all of the ocean's large predatory fish have been fished out.
    *The global fishing fleets are 250 percent larger than the oceans can sustainably support.
    *Eighty percent of the world's fish stocks are fully exploited or in decline.
    *75 percent of fish stocks are being harvested faster than they can reproduce.
    *It is estimated that anywhere from 8 to 25 percent of the global catch is discarded, cast overboard either dead or dying. That's up to 27 million tons of fish thrown out every year--the equivalent of 600 fully-laden Titanics!
    *Every year, an estimated 300,000 whales, dolphins, and porpoises die entangled in fishing net along with thousands of critically-endangered sea turtles.
    *Shrimp trawling is responsible for a third of the world's bycatch, while producing only 2% of all seafood.
    *The U.N. Secretary General reported that 95 percent of damages to seamount ecosystems is caused by deep sea bottom trawling.
    *Water and environments surrounding fish farms are polluted by fish waste, uneaten food, and the chemicals, antibiotics, and vaccines used to control disease.
    *Billions of fish, sharks, sea turtles, dolphins, sea birds, and other marine animals are injured or killed by long-lines each year.
    *It can take more than 5 pounds of fish from the ocean to produce just 1 pound of farmed salmon or sea bass.

    Easy Thing #3-Never Release Balloons
    *A beach litter survey organized by the Marine Conservation Society has shown the amount of balloons and balloon pieces have tripled in the past 10 years.
    *Dolphins, whales, turtles, and many other marine species, as well as terrestrial animals such as cows, dogs, sheep, tortoises, birds, and other animals have been hurt or killed by balloons. The animal is usually killed from the balloon blocking its digestive tract, leaving them unable to take in any more nutrients. It slowly starves to death. The animals can also become entangled in the balloon and its ribbon, making the animal unable to move or eat.
    *Endangered marine turtles are particularly at risk because they naturally prey on jellyfish, which balloons can be mistaken for, even with human eyes.
    *Balloons can take years to break down, even the so-called "biodegradable" latex ones. This gives plenty of time for it to travel and encounter many animals who may mistake it for a tasty snack, or accidentally get entangled in it.

    Easy Thing #4-Use Natracare or Seventh Generation all-natural feminine hygiene products
    *Every year, over 45 billion feminine hygiene products are disposed of somewhere.
    *About 90% of the materials used to make a single conventional pad or liner, as well as some products marketed as "natural", are produced from crude oil.
    *Much of the plastic, including feminine hygiene products, sent to landfill finds it way out into the streams and rivers and ultimately the marine environment.
    *Natracare does not use crude oil or petroleum derived plastics in the construction of its products. Instead they use a plant-based polymer which is made from natural starch and is 100% biodegradable, recyclable, and compostable.
    *Natracare makes every effort to reduce emissions directly by using raw materials with the lowest possible carbon footprint, avoiding unnecessary energy use, and by increasing the efficiency of their systems.
    *Natracare products are certified vegan.

    Easy Thing #5-Use Rechargeable Batteries
    *When you use rechargeable batteries to create 1 kWh of energy, the impact on non-renewable natural resources is comparable to extracting 1 kg of petroleum. Using disposable batteries is comparable to extracting 19 kg of petroleum.
    *When you use rechargeable batteries to create 1 kWh of energy, the impact on global warming is comparable to driving 16 km by car. Using disposable batteries is comparable to driving 457 km.
    *When you use rechargeable batteries to create 1 kWh of energy, the impact on air pollution is comparable to driving 73 km by car. Using disposable batteries is comparable to driving 2,320 km.
    *When you use rechargeable batteries to create 1 kWh of energy, the impact on air acidification is comparable to driving 2,122 km by car. Using disposable batteries is comparable to driving 19,812 km.
    *When you use rechargeable batteries to create 1 kWh of energy, the impact on water pollution is comparable to emitting 227 mg of mercury into the water. Using disposable batteries is comparable to emitting 2,731 mg of mercury.
    *Since only one package of rechargeable batteries is needed to obtain 1 kWh of energy compared with 93 packs of disposable batteries, using rechargeable batteries means a lot less packaging waste.
    *In 2006, 40 billion disposable batteries were sold worldwide, 99% of which end up in landfills, releasing damaging chemicals in the environment.
    *Up to 1,000 less disposable batteries go to landfills for every rechargeable battery that is used.
    *The energy needed to manufacture a battery is on average 50 times greater than the energy it gives out.

    Easy Thing #6-"E-Cycle" Your Old Electronics
    *Recycling aluminum and metals saves 95% of the energy needed to produce new aluminum from raw materials. Energy saved from recycling one ton of aluminum is equal to the amount of electricity the average home uses over 10 years.
    *20 to 50 million tons of e-waste is disposed worldwide each year.
    *A ton of used cell phones(6,000 phones) yields $15,000 in precious materials.
    *Disposing electronics instead of recycling them introduces corrosive chemicals into landfills, which can seep into the ground.
    *The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that more than 40 million computers are discarded every year. Only 15 percent of these computers are recycled, which means that 85 percent of them end up in landfills across the country.
    *Recycling one million laptops saves the energy equivalent to the electricity used by 3,657 US homes in a year.
    *One metric ton of circuit boards can contain 40 to 800 times the concentration of gold ore mined in the US and 30-40 times the concentration of copper mined in the US.
    *For every million cell phones we recycle, 32,274 pounds of copper, 772 pounds of silver, 75 pounds of gold, and 33 pounds of palladium. Recovering metals from used cell phones can reduce the extraction of raw metals from the Earth.
    *E-waste represents only 2% of U.S. landfills but produce 70% of the toxic waste.

    Easy Thing #7-Recycle all of your paper, plastic, aluminum, and glass waste
    *Although the EPA estimates that 75 percent of solid waste is recyclable, only about 32 percent is actually recycled.
    *In 2004, 55 billion aluminum cans were landfilled, littered, or incinerated, that's 9 billion more than were wasted in 2000. That is enough cans to fill the Empire State Building twenty times. It is also a quantity equivalent to the annual production of three to four major primary aluminum smelters.
    *Because so many of them are recycled, aluminum cans account for less than 1% of the total U.S. waste stream, even so, the energy required to replace just the aluminum cans wasted in 2001 was equivalent to 16 million barrels of crude oil, enough to meet the electricity needs of all homes in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, San Francisco, and Seattle.
    *Although recycling is the most common method of plastic waste pollution prevention, less than one percent of all plastic products are recycled in the U.S.
    *Almost every hour, nearly 250,000 plastic bottles are dumped. It is not surprising that plastic bottles constitute nearly 50% of recyclable waste in dumps.
    *According to The Public Recycling Office of Pennsylvania, for every ton of paper that is recycled, the following are saved: 17 trees, 275 pounds of sulfur, 350 pounds of limestone, 9,000 pounds of steam, 60,000 gallons of water, 225 kilowatt hours, and 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space.
    *Forests are being cut and trees are being felled at an unimaginable rate of 100 acres per minute. All of this is to produce paper which is normally used and disposed without much thought.
    *A plant takes 15 to 20 years to grow into a tree, but takes less than ten minuted to be felled, and on an average one tree can yield about 700 paper grocery bags, which will be consumed in less than an hour by a supermarket!
    *Energy used to recycle paper is close to 70% less than when paper is prepared using virgin wood and other materials.
    *Recycling 14 trees' worth of paper reduces air pollutants by 165,142 tons.
    *The average time taken by plastic bottles to decompose in a landfill is close to 700 years.
    *Glass is one of the very few products that can be completely recycled again and again, but it often ends up in landfills and never decomposes.
    *World-famous chocolate manufacturer Hershey Chocolate Company, in manufacturing 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses every day, uses about 133 square miles of aluminum to wrap the chocolates. The aluminum wrap is recyclable, but most of this recyclable aluminum reaches the trash cans instead of recycle bins, because people often enjoy the chocolate but don't think about the recyclable aluminum wrap!
    *One of the materials that is easiest and fastest to recycle is aluminum. Aluminum cans can be recycled and reused within 60 days.
    *Four pounds of bauxite is saved with every pound of aluminum recycled.
    *Nearly 60% to 70% of waste found in dustbins can be recycled and reused and close to 50% of the same waste can be composted.
    *According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S.'s 2009 recycling efforts prevented approximately 178 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released. That is equivalent to the annual emissions of 33 million cars.
    *In 2009, about 5.1 billion pounds of plastic(PET) bottles were available for recycling in the United States, but only 28% of them were recycled.
    *It takes about 1/3 the amount of energy to produce a new plastic product from recycled materials rather than raw materials. To put this into perspective, recycling a single plastic bottle can save enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for six hours.
    *The energy needed to produce aluminum products from recycled aluminum is about 5% of the energy needed to mine and prepare raw ore for new aluminum products.

    Sources:
    Balloons Blow
    Clean Air Council
    David Suzuki Foundation
    Earth 911
    End Of The Line
    Environmental Working Group
    Global Action Network
    Greenpeace
    Natracare
    Oceana
    Ocean Crusaders
    Save Our Seas
    Treehugger
    Vegetarian & Vegan Foundation
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  2. #2
    Senior Member Undisclosed Pod
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    I do all these yay. Great ideas!

  3. #3
    Nice! Easy lifestyle changes to make, and all great ideas. After reading some of your other posts about incorporating meatless Mondays into your routine I decided to give it a try this week. But instead of doing one meatless day per week, I decided to try avoiding meat in my lunches. I did this at work all week and it has been a really easy change! I did find that I brought more dairy (yogurt, cheese) with me to work for snacks, so I'll have to grocery shop this weekend for additional options. I'll bring my re-usable bag, of course!
    Last edited by Madison MerFaerie; 08-01-2015 at 03:11 AM.
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  4. #4
    When I turned in my old VCR for e-cycling, I felt a little emotional about it, because it had been a good faithful friend to me when I was bed-ridden as a kid that I was sad that it finally didn't work any more. It had last for over a decade.
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  5. #5
    I understand the emotional part of it, and I still have some of my old VHS tapes and music cassette tapes that I would have a hard time parting with.
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  6. #6
    More Easy Things:
    (1) Buy used books, e-books, online audiobooks, or check out from the library instead of buying new books when possible
    *In the USA in one year, 2 billion books were produced. To get the paper for these books requires consuming 32 million trees.
    *The 200 million free e-books downloaded from Project Gutenberg and the World eBook Fair between 2006 to 2009 saved 3,200,000 trees.
    *The blog Eco-libris tells us that the book publishing industry in the USA uses 16 million tons of paper every year.
    *According to the website of the Green Press Initiative, the U.S. book and newspaper industries combined require the harvest of 125 million trees each year and emit over 40 million metric tons of CO2 annually, equivalent to the annual CO2 emissions of 7.3 million cars.
    Source: E-Publisher's Weekly
    (2) Use used gift bags, wrapping paper, boxes, bows, tissue paper and ribbons to wrap gifts
    *In the U.S., annual trash from gift-wrap and shopping bags totals 4 million tons
    *If every family reused just two feel of holiday ribbon, the 38,00 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet
    *Americans throw away 25% more trash during the Thanksgiving to New Year's holiday period than other time of the year.
    *If every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.
    Sources:
    RecycleWorks
    Use Less Stuff
    (3) Send e-cards instead of paper greeting cards
    *10,000 trees are cut down annually in China to make holiday cards.
    *E-cards are paperless, therefore they do not consume trees and water
    *Send e-cards does not require transportation that generates CO2 emission
    *No landfill space needed
    Source: 1st Eco-Friendly Planet
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