April is here and with it comes the celebration of Earth Day. This event first began in 1970, a time of leaded gas, V-8 sedans, and alarming, unregulated industrial pollution. U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin had an epiphany in 1969, after witnessing the massive offshore oil spill in Santa Barbara and knew that the time had come to do something. He founded Earth Day in an effort to mobilize Americans in the fight to save our environment.
On April 22, 1970, in coast-to-coast rallies, twenty million Americans took to the streets to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment. Groups that had separately been fighting their own narrow fights realized that they had a common goal and could find strength in uniting. They now had a shared vision for the future and focused on ending the loss of wilderness, the extinction of wildlife, and the polluting of our air and water.
Earth Day in 1970 achieved that most rare of alliances between Republicans and Democrats, as well as city dwellers and farmers, business and labor, rich and poor. That first Earth Day also led to the creation of the EPA and passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. For once, something actually worked for the greater good of all.
In 1990, Earth Day went global, reaching 141 countries and putting environmental issues front and center. Earth Day 1990 also gave a big boost to recycling efforts worldwide, shining a light on the need for recycling to be a community priority to save valuable natural resources
In 1995, Senator Nelson received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the highest civilian honor given in the United States, for his role in founding Earth Day.
As Earth Day 2015 approaches there are a great many environmental challenges that we still face. Climate change deniers, well-funded oil lobbyists, partisan politicians and an apathetic public all make our jobs that much harder. But the fight is important, and as challenging as it is, clean air, clean water, land preservation, and saving natural resources are still our highest priorities.
Environmental leaders still work to educate a public that sometimes values convenience over the best interest of our environment. It is not an easy task, but well worth the effort. Here are some statistics to remember as we prepare to celebrate another Earth Day.
- By simply recycling one aluminum can, you are saving enough energy to watch a TV for three hours. Recycling one glass bottle is enough to light a traditional light bulb for four hours.
- We use more than 80 billion aluminum soda cans every year. It takes 90 percent less energy to recycle aluminum cans than to make new ones.
- Recycling every newspaper would save about 250 million trees each year. Unfortunately, only 27 percent of all American newspapers are recycled.
- The average individual throws away approximately four pounds of garbage every day and uses about 12,000 gallons of water every year.
- The average car burns an average of two gallons of fuel a day. Each of those gallons releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.
- Most families throw away about 88 pounds of plastic every year.
- We throw away billions of dead batteries every year. This makes up 88 percent of the mercury and 54 percent of the cadmium deposited into landfills.
- Recycled paper uses 64 percent less energy than making paper from virgin wood pulp and can save many trees. Every ton of recycled paper saves 17 trees.
- Approximately one billion trees worth of paper is thrown away every year in the U.S.
- Every year, 14 billion pounds of trash is dumped into the oceans. Plastic bags and other plastic garbage thrown into the ocean kill as many as one million sea creatures every year.
- Nearly 80 million Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped each day. That’s enough recyclable aluminum foil to cover more than 50 acres of space or 40 football fields.
- Every year, Americans discards 16 million diapers, 1.6 billion pens, 2 billion razor blades, 220 million car tires, and enough aluminum to rebuild the U.S. commercial air fleet four times over.
On Sunday April 19th Sedona Recycles will be celebrating Earth Day with a Sustainability Fair at our facility on Shelby Drive. There will be food, games, music, a recycled fashion show, recycled art, and information about sustainable groups and organizations in Sedona and the Verde Valley. The event will also include a big rummage sale and raffle. Join us from 10am to 3pm as we celebrate the Earth. For more information, contact us at (928) 204-1185 or visit www.sedonarecycles.org.
by Jill McCutcheon, Sedona Recycles
Sedona Red Rock News
April 15, 2015