- Did you know that most toilet paper comes from old-growth boreal forests in Canada, which take carbon pollution out of the air, and are homes to both Indigenous people and wildlife? Try recycled or bamboo toilet paper! Bamboo is a super-fast-growing plant – it can grow as much as 2.9 feet a day!
- Did you know that you can get free money for things like insulation, heat-pump water heaters, and more from the HOMES program at Focus on Energy? See https://focusonenergy.com/home-energy-rebates You may qualify for more than one rebate, or completely free things: https://focusonenergy.com/get-started
- Did you know that an induction stove boils water faster than a gas stove? Induction technology uses magnetic currents to directly heat pots, and it provides quicker heat, precise control, and easy cleanup. Induction stoves are safer because they don’t involve flames, and don’t heat up the surface of the stovetop. They’re also better for your health than a gas stove because they don’t put carbon monoxide, methane, benzene, nitrogen dioxides, or volatile organic compounds into the air of your home.
- Did you know that only 3% of the Earth’s water is fresh water? And less than 2% of that is available for drinking water, because the rest is locked up in glaciers, ice caps, permafrost, or buried deep underground. One way we can protect our local fresh water is by not using herbicides or pesticides on our lawns.
- Did you know that driving a gas car a single mile puts about a pound of carbon-dioxide (CO2) into the air? Carbon-dioxide is a heat-trapping gas which makes our Earth overheat and our weather get weird. Once it gets into the air, it stays in the atmosphere for 300 to 1,000 years! According to the EPA, an average American car puts over 10,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide per year into the air. (The exact number depends on your car’s mpg and how far you drive.) Consider upgrading to an electric vehicle (EV) or plug-in hybrid.
- Did you know you can save energy and money by letting dishes air dry? Set a timer when you turn on your dishwasher, to remind you to open it up at the beginning of the dry cycle – the dishes will finish drying for free! When you’re washing clothing, anything you normally hang up (shirts, jackets, slacks, etc.) can be started for a few minutes in the dryer to remove wrinkles, and then hung on hangers to finish air drying, indoors or outside. No extra effort.
- Did you know that Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, has impacts on climate, water, and land? An incredible amount of energy (most of it from dirty fossil fuels) is used for Bitcoin “mining”. Bitcoin mining emitted over 85 megatons of CO2 from 2020 to 2021. Maybe it would be better if we stuck with regular money?
- Did you know that on average, a third of the food produced in the U.S. ends up wasted? Encourage family members to only take as much food as they’ll eat, and save left-overs for a once-a-week smorgasbord buffet night. If you can, compost food scraps, or sign up for a composting service like GreenBox.
- Did you know that there’s a garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean that is estimated to be 620,000 sq miles, which is about twice the size of Texas, or three times the size of France? The Ocean Cleanup is a non-profit organization that develops and scales technologies to rid the oceans of plastic. It aims to clean up 90% of floating ocean plastic pollution by 2040. You can help support their work at https://theoceancleanup.com/
- Did you know that a leaky faucet dripping one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons per year? That’s the amount of water needed to take more than 180 showers! Go to https://www.epa.gov/watersense/fix-leak-week# to learn how to find and fix leaks in your home.
- Did you know that one round-trip flight, from Chicago to San Diego, emits about 2,500 pounds of CO2? That’s more than twice what a person living in Ethiopia emits in a year! To decrease the environmental impact of flying, you can pack light, take direct flights, fly economy, use an airline with low-carbon ratings (like Frontier Airline), and buy carbon-offsets for your flight.
- Did you know that garbage – especially things made with plastics – sits in landfills for hundreds of years? (https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/top-10-what-are-the-longest-lasting-landfill-items) And even then the plastic just breaks into “microplastics” – it doesn’t become a natural substance. Do your part to cut down on garbage in the world – instead of trashing things you don’t want, clean and repair them as needed, and then sell, donate, or swap them. Try Freecycle.
- Did you know that solar panels pay for themselves in about ten years? After that you get another twenty (or more) years of free electricity! They also add value to your home when you sell. See if solar panels might work where you live. Or support clean energy with Green Power Tomorrow by MGE, or SolarShare Cooperative.
- Did you know that the 2-stroke gas engines of leaf blowers, trimmers, edgers, etc. are very inefficient, and they account for the vast majority of fine particulate pollution in landscape maintenance activities? You can clean up the air and decrease noise by switching to electric yard equipment (or you can ask your yard maintenance company to do so).
- Did you know that Chase Bank, Citi, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America are the worst US banks for funding new climate-destroying fossil fuel projects? Try to find out how environmentally-friendly your bank is. I’ve heard that local credit unions are usually pretty good.
- Did you know that old-fashioned (incandescent) light bulbs lose 90% of their energy as heat, and only 10% of their energy is used to give off light? LED lights use 75% less energy, and last up to 25 times longer than those bulbs. You can save money and energy by replacing your old incandescent bulbs (even if they still work, they waste so much energy when they’re turned on, it’s sensible to throw them away) and compact florescent bulbs (those are the curly bulbs – you can’t put them in the trash; take them back to a store that sells lights, and be careful not to break them because they’re toxic inside) with LED light bulbs that are now sold everywhere.
- Did you know that each day the US uses an estimated 500 million straws—enough disposable straws to fill over 46,400 large school buses per year? Just say “no” to unnecessary straws. If you need one, try a reusable plastic straw, metal straw, glass straw, or even bamboo straw!
- Did you know that heating anything up takes a lot of energy? Especially if it’s summer or you’re just cooking for one person, you’ll save energy by using a microwave or toaster oven instead of heating up a large oven.