America Recycles week facts

1. On average, recycling 1 ton of recyclable household materials saves enough energy to power 36 homes for one month. 
2. Purchasing a live Christmas tree is more environmentally friendly than purchasing an artificial one that lasts for 10 years.  It is even better if it is sustainably and locally sourced without pesticides and herbicides.
3. Americans collectively throw away an extra 1 million tons of garbage WEEKLY between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.  Go to: https://www.smallfootprintfamily.com/eco-friendly-holiday-tips for ways to do your part to reduce your waste during the holiday season. 
4. Approximately 1.5 billion cards are sent over the holiday season in the U.S., which requires 300,000 new trees to be harvested per year.  Consider sending electronic Christmas cards instead.
5. The night before Thanksgiving is one of the top 3 nights of the year to order pizza.  Pizza boxes are recyclable, but only if they are not contaminated with food or grease.  Rip the top of the box off to be recycled and throw bottom away or compost it if that is an option for you. 
6. Holiday lighting consumes over six TW of energy per year, which is equivalent to the total monthly energy consumption by around 500,000 homes.  Be sure to use LED lights to save 90% of the energy over incandescent lights.
7. Shopping locally not only helps the local economy, but is often more environmentally friendly if products are locally sourced and since you drive a shorter distance.  For further distanced shopping trips, online ordering may be better as long as you don’t choose expedited shipping.

Fuel Standards Make Cents Too

I recently drove my 2019 Chevy Equinox down to Bowling Green, KY. It was manufactured with the fuel economy standards set by President Obama. These standards were established to reduce the amount of CO2 that is put into the atmosphereby the transportation sector. Transportation now puts more CO2 into the air than the CO2 produced by heating and cooling buildings.

First, I will tell you thatI do drive with an eye on conserving fuel. I only drive 65 mph even when the speed limit is 70 mph. The total mileage for the round trip was about 960 miles and almost all highway driving. I achieved 42 miles per gallon with my Equinox SUV. About 8 years ago I was getting the same mileage with my compact 2004 Chevy Cavalier. Until 2013 I was happy to get 32 miles per gallon with my Chevy HHR,which is substantially smaller than the Equinox.

You can see that fuel economy standards have done a great job of pushing the car manufacturers to improve vehicle fuel economy. At 42 miles per gallon with the Equinox I used about 23 gallons of gas for the trip. If I had been driving my 2008 HHR I would have used about 30 gallons of gasoline. So in this one trip I didn’t burn 7 gallons of fuel that I would have before the fuel standards were improved by President Obama. That is about 1/5^th fewer green house gases that were put into the air.It also saved me about $17.50 for the entire trip. That is figuring $2.50 per gallon of gas.

At this time President Trump is planning to roll back the fuel standards put in place by President Obama. If that happens we will be paying more money and polluting the air more for the same vacation trip. Over time you drive a vehicle, say 90,000 miles, you would save $1575 dollars in $2.50 per gallon gas. Even more importantly you are polluting the air 20% less than you would be without fuel economy standards. With the planet in Climate Crisis it is extremely important to reduce the green house gases that we put into the atmosphere by extending vehicle fuel economy standards instead of rolling them back.

Please call your Representative and Senators to let them know they should oppose the roll back of vehicle fuel economy standards.

Help-A-Thon

East Peoria Green was pleased to assist Central Junior High School with their Help-A-Thon activity.  The students we worked with are named in the picture.  In the candid photos you can see that we all picked up and separated both trash and recyclables along the Riverfront Park area of East Peoria.  By the time we were done we had a great deal of both recyclables and trash to put where it belongs.   East Peoria Green thanks the students for their help in caring for the environment.  

Painted Toters

East Peoria green members Linda and Bob painted the recycling toters at the football stadium so they look more like recycling toters the city is using.  Please watch for them at the games and recycle aluminum cans and plastic bottles only.