Facts About the Environment
Did you know...
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Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for two hours.
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During the time it takes you to read this sentence, 50,000 12-ounce aluminum cans are made.
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An aluminum can may be recycled ad infinitum (forever!).
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We consume over 80 trillion aluminum cans every year.
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The world's tallest tree is a coast redwood in California, measuring more than 360 feet or 110 meters.
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The world's oldest trees are 4,600 year old Bristlecone pines in the USA.
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Every day, American businesses generate enough paper to circle the earth 20 times!
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Each year, Americans throw away 25 trillion Styrofoam cups.
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Only 1% of the world's water supply is usable, 97% are the oceans and 2% is frozen (for now).
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On average, ONE supermarket goes through 60,500,000 paper bags per year!
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An automatic dishwasher uses less hot water than doing dishes by hand, an average of six gallons less per cycle, or over 2,000 gallons per year.
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The amount of wood and paper we throw away each year is enough to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years.
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Every time you open the refrigerator door, up to 30 percent of the cold air can escape.
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Americans use 2,500,000 plastic bottles every hour, most of which are thrown away!
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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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A modern glass bottle takes 4000 years or more to decompose.
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About one-third of an average landfill is made up of packaging material.
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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. We toss out two billion plastic razors, a million and a half tons of paper towels, and 12 billion disposable diapers annually.
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More than 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of tinfoil. All that foil is recyclable!
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Rainforests are being cut down at the rate of 100 acres per minute.