Earth Day: Be Greener

In honor of Earth Day, here are some fun or not so fun facts:

• We, as Americans, make up 5% of the world's population but use 25% of the world's resources.
• Americans use over one billion plastic bottles a week.
• Plastic takes up to 500 years to decompose.
• In one year, we generate enough hazardous waste to fill the New Orleans Superdome 1,500 times over.
• In 1987, Americans generated almost enough trash to fill a 24-lane highway one foot deep from Boston to Los Angeles. Disposable diapers alone make up enough trash to fill a barge half a city block long, every six hours, every day! (Can you imagine how those numbers have changed today?)
• Each person throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day.
• The amount of wood and paper we throw away is enough to heat 50 million homes for 20 years.
• 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean every year.
• Computers pose an environmental threat because much of the material that makes them up is hazardous. A typical monitor contains 4-5 pounds of lead.

I'm certainly not one to say you must change your lifestyle and be green but there's gotta be at least one thing you can do. One less paper towel a day, bring your own coffee cup to work, catch a ride with a friend. One thing across the span of the world can change a lot!

Here's a few sites that can help:

Freecycle.org --My new favorite place! Gotta couch you don't want? Need a dog crate for you new puppy? This is the place to look. Everything listed on Freecycle must be given away, free. So things get recycled instead of landing in the garbage pile.
The Story of Stuff --Grab your spouse, your kids, whoever you can get your hands on and watch this 20 minute movie. It's an eye opener!
Enviromapper --Allows you to type in your zip code and find out where all the hazardous crap is around you.
Earth911 --Has great info and allows you to type in what you're disposing of and your zip to find the nearest recycling/re-use locations.
WeCanSolveIT.org --This is Al Gore's newest baby.

And here's a few just for you locals:
Treez Please --This organization is near and dear to my heart. Started by my friend, Deb Weaver, Treez Please acquires abandoned spaces (think, a place where a house used to be) and turns them into "pocket parks" filled with beautiful trees and flowers.
Green Energy TV --Here's a place where you can watch (and upload) videos about being green. Whether it's composting or solar energy, Green Energy has it.
Grow Youngstown --Their goal is their name. They want to "promote local growth of food, forage, forests and fuel sources within 60 miles of Youngstown by creating Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), sponsoring urban gardens, food forests, and nurturing young gardeners."

Being greener isn't always the easiest choice but it is an important one!