According to
www.gogreeninitiative.org - Throwing away items that could be recycled diminishes energy, water and natural resources that could be saved by recycling.
Did you know...
* - For every ton of paper that is recycled, the following is saved: 7,000 gallons of water, 380 gallons of oil and enough electricity to power an average house for six months.
* - You can run a TV for six hours on the amount of electricity that is saved by recycling one aluminum can.
* - By recycling just one glass bottle, you save enough electricity to power a 100-watt bulb for four hours.
* - The more we throw away, the more space we take up in landfills. When a landfill becomes a "landfull," taxpayers have to build a new one. The less we throw away, the longer our landfills will last. The amount of taxpayer money we save by extending the longevity of our landfills is an important community benefit.
Once you get past the false statements in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth," there is something to be said for simply doing the right thing to insure a better future for our children.
Many corporate construction projects are turning to Green buildings (using energy-efficient and recycled materials); even political parties are "greening" this year's national conventions.
In our household, we have been recycling plastic and paper for more than 15 years. I have even participated in several "Operation Sparkle" clean-up projects to remove graffiti in the Los Angeles area, with the goal of beautifying the neighborhood.
Environmental "green" was not on my mind last week as our family traveled to Waikoloa, Hawaii, for a well-deserved vacation. We did collect plastic and glass bottles so the resort could easily recycle and used towels more than once.
What really caught our attention, however, was the creative graffiti all over the Big Island. As we traveled along highway 19, we noticed the graffiti - names, sayings, and pictures.
All of the "graffiti" was done using white rocks, which stood out against the black lava background. The use of the white rocks allowed locals and visitors to mark up the landscape without damaging the environment.
Maybe Californians can learn something from the Aloha state and find a "green" method for graffiti expression. Given the brown color of our desert landscape, we can import the black lava rocks from Hawaii, in the interest of cross-state trade relations. This would make "green" black and white.