Each time you #recycle or #compost materials instead of discarding them, you help reduce #greenhousegasemissions (GHG) and protect the climate. Over time these #emissionreductions add up to significant amounts! In fact, GHG reductions from recycling and composting are often so considerable that they can be compared to avoided tailpipe emissions from vehicles, or cars taken off the road (stopwaste.com, 2019). To put in perspective, if one single-family were to discard one of our buckets per week at an average of 20 lbs of #foodwaste / #compostables (although a bucket can hold up to 30-40 lbs); it would be an equivalent of saving 961 pounds of CO2 per year, 1,144 miles driven by an average passenger vehicle, or 55,536 smart phones charged. If you think small changes don’t make real impact? Well you must think twice; considering there are approximately 39,900 households in #TheWoodlands, what would happen if say only 50% of the city #composted one of our buckets at an average of 20 lbs per week? How much #environmental impact would that make? Let’s take a look: If 19,950 households would compost one of our #buckets at an average of 20 lbs of food waste/compostables, it would be equivalent to (naturbag.com, 2019): - 19,169,285 pounds of CO2 saved per year. - 8,299.2 average American cars driven for one year. - 3,029 tons of waste recycled instead of landfilled for one year. - 22,822,800 miles driven by an average passenger vehicle. - 977,634 gallons of gasoline consumed per year. - 940 homes’ #energy use for one year - 1,108,029,707 smart phones charged! Greenhouse Gas Emissions Avoided by, or in other words, you saved on the following (epa.gov, 2019): - 422 #Garbage trucks of #waste #recycled - 369,681 trash bags of waste recycled instead of landfilled - 2 wind turbines running for a year - 11,346 acres of US #forest sequestering #carbon for one year - 58.8 acres of US forests preserved from conversion to crop land in one year. Truthfully staggering figures, yet this is only considering half of the population of The Woodlands! If you want to start #makingachange Sign Up Today at www.zerowastethewoodlands.com/signup
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