Factoids

No time to read complete articles? PintSite's factoids strip away everything but the essential facts you need to know about the environment.

• Americans generate 5 million extra tons of trash each year between Thanksgiving and New Years Day.
• 246 lbs of plastic are used to keep one baby in disposable diapers for one year.
• Disposable diapers add 2.8 billion tons of untreated urine and feces, plastic, and paper to landfills annually.
• About 6 million tons of petroleum products end up in the ocean each year.
• During the last decade, more than one billion gallons of oil spilled worldwide.
• Livestock account for 15% to 20% of global methane emissions.
• 55 square feet of tropical rainforest is destroyed for the production of each fast-food hamburger made from rainforest beef.
• More species of birds exist in one square mile of Amazon rainforest than exist in all of North America.
• Over 80% of U.S. streams and rivers are contaminated with a broad array of medical drugs, including hormones, antibiotics, antidepressants, and heart medications.
• An F16 uses more fuel in one hour than average car owner uses in 2 years.
• The most popular car driven by California legislators is the Ford Expedition, which gets 12-18 mpg.
• The U.S. represents 5% of the world's population but uses 25% of its natural resources.
• In 2000, the metal mining industry released 3.3 billion pounds of toxic waste into the environment.
• In the last 25 years there has been a 40% loss of ice thickness in the arctic. If present trends continue, you may be able to swim from Prudhoe Bay to the Baffin Sea before the end of this century.
• The refuse accumulation in the ancient city of Troy raised the elevation of the city 4.7 feet per century.
• The $22-billion-a-year bottled water industry uses 1.5 million tons of plastic annually to package water.
• Improving the timing of U.S. traffic lights could cut gas consumption by 10 percent, according to USA Today.
• Americans discard 133,000 obsolete personal computers each day, according to U.S. News & World Report.
• Tires can't be landfilled; they always pop up to the top.
• The principal source of lead dust exposure to U.S. children is the renovation and repair of older residences.
• Coal-burning power plants produce more than half the electricity generated in the U.S.
• An estimated 375,000,000 printer ink cartridges are thrown away every year. It takes about 1000 years for every one of those millions of cartridges to decompose in our landfills.
• An average of three quarts of oil are burned to make one new printer ink cartridge.
• The U.S. uses 18 billion disposable diapers used each year.

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