Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Campaign Earth


It's time for your next challenge!


The environmental benefits to recycling are huge. For example, every ton of paper recycled will save: 17 trees, 4200 kwh of energy (enough to power a home for 6 months), 2.3 to 4 barrels of oil and 3.6 tons of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Need more? For every 54 pounds of aluminum recycled, 1 barrel of oil is saved. Recycling your cans uses 95% less energy than creating them from virgin ore.

To take this challenge, simply increase your recycling efforts. Here are a few ideas:


Recycle those old phone books. A quick phone call to your nearest recycling center will most likely tell you were to bring them.


At the supermarket, recycle your plastic and paper bags. Most grocery stores have a place to recycle these bags. If they don't, ask the g.m. to implement this program. Better yet, reuse the bags at the store or start using those nice cloth bags.


Create a home for your recycleables. Having an easily accessible bin to throw your stuff into that's also easy to transport makes recycling simple.


Already an avid recycler? How about working with a youth group to implement a recycling program in a local business?


go to www.campaignearth.org to sign up.

4 comments:

Melanie said...

We've been recycling for a couple of years now, and I'm always amazed by how much goes into the recycling bin in my kitchen rather than the garbage can!

Nora said...

this one is the hardest for us... we don't use canned soft drinks and don't get a daily newspaper delivered. I'm not sure how much recyclables that we generate. I'll have to work on this one. The phonebooks and shopping bags are good suggestions for me to try.

Kara said...

I do "reuse" the grocery store bags for scooping the kitty litter and putting Lanie's poopy diapers in. I feel good that I am reusing them, but feel bad that they aren't being reused in a recycleable way. Does that make sense?

It is amazing how much is truly recycleable, though. At first you think it will just be soda cans, but then you realize that so much of what you throw away can be recycled.

Melanie said...

I think you would be surprised. We don't buy soda either, but all the canned goods (veggies, tuna fish, soup, etc.), milk cartons, water bottles and glass pasta sauce jars all add up.