Did You Know?
Although industrailized countries account for only 25 percent of the world's population, they consume 75 percent of its energy.
A four-speed manual transmission can save up to 6.5 miles per gallon over a three-speed automatic.
One in four pharmaceutical drugs now on the market comes from a rain forest plant, and 70% of all plants identified by the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, as being potentially useful treatments for cancer are found only in tropical rain forest.
The World Health Organization estimates that 70% of the globe's urban population breathes air made unhealthy through high levels of smog, sulfer dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants.
Recycling an aluminium can saves 95% of energy used to make aluminium from scratch and cuts air pollution by a corresponding 95%.
Indoor plants clean air naturally-they can remove up to 87% of toxic indoor air, including such dangerous pollutants as formadehyde, benzene and trichloroethylene, within 24 hours.
Over the last 500 years we've cleared 60% of the world'd forest. In the last 40 years alone, Africa lost 23 % of its forest and Central America, 38%.
A single 100-watt bulb gives off 0% more light than two 60-watt bulbs and uses less elecricity in the process.
Recycling one ton of paper saves three cubic yards of landfill space and 7000 gallons of water neede to make paper from scratch.
Laptop computers use 10 to 30 pecent less evergy than deskbound PCs.
Installing low-flow aerators on kitchen and bathroom faucets saves hot water and can cut total water flow in half-saving as much as 28- gallons a month for a family of four-yet the flow seems stronger because air is mixed into water as it leaves the tap.
Galzing office windows with transparent low emulsive film reduces the amount of ultraviolet rays from the sulight so the space stays 30 to 50 percent cooler.
CFCs released toady will take 8 to 12 years to reach the ozone layer, where they can remain, depleting it slowly, for dozens of years.
The same gallon of gas you could use to run a fuel-effcient car for an hour is used up in 12 minutes in a limousine and in one-thenth of a second in a B-1 bomber jet.
It cost about 40% less to refill a "disposble" laser printer catridge than to buy a new one. You can reuse most catridges three to six times before adding them to the 14 million we're now sending off to landfills each year.
The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle will light a 100-watt bulb for hours.
A single 18-watt compact fluorescent bulb produces the saem amount of lght as a 75-watt incandescent bulb and last 13 times as long, saving generating capacity at the power station as well as the cost of replacement bulbs.
Up to 2 million seabirds and 100000 marine animals-including 30000 fur seals-die each year after eating or getting tangled in plastic.
The installation of an airconditioner in a car releases about two and one half pounds of CFCs when its recharged annually another pound is released. Running the air conditioner while driving reduces fuel economy by as much as two and a half miles per gallon.
A leaky faucet losing one drop of water a second will watse 700 gallons of water in a year.
Source : Newsweek 17 June 1991
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