Earth Day 2009

It's our planet. It's our home. We're slowly killing it and it's time we all woke up and save it.

This is the message that has been put on the table. The words are easy to say but the mission is a tough one but not an impossible one.

We all need to act now because right now, at this very moment, the Earth's climate is changing and each and every day that we ignore this fact we put tomorrow in jeopardy for us, our children and each living thing on this planet.

April 22, 2009 is Earth Day. Let's make the other 264 days part of this celebration each year.

Here are some interesting and some what troubling facts about the way we use the world around us.

• The garbage in a landfill stays for a for about 30 years.
• In 1995 over 200 of the world landfills were full.
• Each person throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day.
• One bus carries as many people as 40 cars!
• We each use about 12,000 gallons of water every year.
• The 500 million automobiles on earth burn an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day.
• Approximately 5 million tons of oil produced in the world each ear ends up in the ocean.
• Recycled paper requires 64% less energy than making paper from virgin wood pulp, and can save many trees.
• Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 17 trees.
• Earth is 2/3 water. but all the fresh water streams only represent one hundredth of one percent.
• 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the ocean every year.
• It takes 90% less energy to recycle aluminum cans than to make new ones.
• 5 billion aluminum cans are used each year.
• 84 percent of all household waste can be recycled.
• Each year billions of used batteries are thrown away in the United States. This constitutes 88% of the mercury and 54% of the cadmium deposited into our landfills.
• Approximately only 10 percent of every landfill can be cleaned up.
• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to watch a TV for three hours - it's equivalent to half a gallon of gasoline.
• Earth Day is a relatively new holiday and was first celebrated on April 22 in 1970. More than 20 million Americans participated in this first Earth Day celebration.
• More than 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of tinfoil. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.
• The patron Saint of ecologists is St. Francis and the first proclamation of Earth Day was made by the mayor of San Francisco in 1970.

Thank You for PLANET PALS. COM for the terrific Earth Day Facts.