Saturday, April 22, 2017 is Earth Day, an annual celebration of the planet we live on and the environmental movement to protect it. At Vistamatic, we have an ongoing Environmental Commitment strategy to reduce our environmental impact, where practicable. Carbon reducing measures form an integral part of the overall Company strategy, helping to improve both operational performance and a reduction in potentially harmful emissions to land, water and air!
Earth Day Fun Facts
- Earth Day was founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson on April 22, 1970.
- 20 million people participated in the first Earth Day.
- More than 100 billion pieces of junk mail are delivered in the United States each year.
- The U.S. buried or burned more than 166 million tons of resources – paper, plastic, metals, glass and organic materials – in landfills and incinerators last year.
- It only takes about 6 weeks total to manufacture, fill, sell, recycle, and then remanufacture an aluminum beverage can.
- Half the world’s tropical and temperate forests are now gone.
- More than 2 million people globally die prematurely every year due to outdoor and indoor air pollution.
- Every year in the U.S. nearly 200 billion beverage containers are sold, two-thirds of which are landfilled, incinerated or littered.
- Recycling, reuse and remanufacturing account for 3.1 million jobs in the U.S.
- Recycling saves 3 to 5 times the energy that waste incinerator power plants generate.
- By reducing our waste 1% per year and recycling and composting 90% of our discards by 2030, we could save 406 megatons of carbon dioxide equivalent every year. This is the equivalent to shutting down 21% of our nation’s coal-fired power plants.
- More than 76% of cardboard boxes and 72% of newspaper were recycled in 2006 but less than 50% of printing and writing paper was recycled.
Source: http://bit.ly/1iGe6jY
