Save Planet Earth

Bad Facts about our earth

1. If you throw away 2 aluminum cans, you waste more energy than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) of the world's poorest people use a day.
2. Making a new can from scratch uses the uses the energy equal to half a can of gasoline.
   About one third of what an average American throws out is packaging.
   More than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) trees are used to make disposable diapers every year.
3. In one minute, 50 acres of rainforest are destroyed.
4. Some rain has a pH of 3 or 4. (which is pretty acidic, considering 7 is neutral, not acidic, and battery acid has a pH of 1). Some fish, such as lake trout and smallmouth bass, have trouble reproducing at a pH of 6, which is only slightly acidic. Some clams and snails can't survive at all. Most crayfish are dead at a pH of 5. You can see how bad this is for the environment.
5. On average, a person in the US uses energy two times more than a person in Japan or West Germany does, and 50 times more than a person in India.
   About 90% of the energy used in lighting a standard (incandescent) light bulb is lost as heat.
6. Air conditioning uses 10 times more energy than a fan, therefore, it creates 10 times the pollutants.
7. It takes half the output of the Alaskan pipeline to heat the air that escapes from all the homes in the US during a year.
8. Cars and pick-up trucks are responsible for about 20% of the carbon dioxide released into the air.
9. There are about 500 million automobiles on the planet, burning an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day. Each gallon releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.
   About 80% of our trash goes to landfills, 10% is incinerated, and 10% is recycled.
10. Since there is little oxygen underground, where we bury our garbage, to help bacteria eat the garbage, almost nothing happens to it. Scientists have dug into landfills and found ears of corn still intact after 20 years, and newspapers still readable after 30.
11. The average American makes about 3.5 pounds of trash a day.
12. In a year, the average American uses as much wood in the form of paper as the average resident of the developing world burns as fuel.