With so much attention focused on environmental issues lately, it seems as if we are constantly barraged with stories about the environmental impact of our actions and the damages done to the planet Earth. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by this kind of ever-present data, so I have broken a few choice facts down into digestible chunks of information for easy reference.

The facts aren’t great, and this isn’t a “look how good we’re doing” piece, rather, it’s the black and white of our impact on our planet. Each fact is backed up with the source I used to find it, so feel free to do a little digging of your own if you’re skeptical or if you’d like to learn more about these issues.

According to Alex Wissner-Gross, a Harvard University physicist, a typical online ‘Search’ generates about 7 grams of carbon dioxide. (Measuring Your Google Search’s Carbon Footprint by CNET.com). Overall, the IT industry produces 2% of global carbon emissions, or the same amount as the airline industry!

Each year over one hundred million trees are harvested and turned into junk mail. (Just the Facts: Junk Mail Facts and Figures from New American Dream and Conservatree). The production and disposal of all of this junk mail ends up using as much energy as do 3 million passenger cars!

Even though phone books are recyclable, people throw 660,000 tons of them into landfills annually (The Story of Phone Books from Earth 911). For every 500 phone books that end up in landfills, we needlessly waste 7000 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil, 17-31 trees, and 3.06 cubic yards of landfill space.

In 2005, almost two million tons of e-waste were disposed of in landfills. Comprised of old cell phones, computers, television sets and batteries, this e-waste contains hazardous materials including lead and mercury that were never meant to be disposed of in landfills, and pose significant risk to people and the planet. (E-Waste: Harmful Materials from Earth 911).

Of the 215 billion plastic, glass and aluminum beverage bottles and cans sold in the US during 2006, a full 66% (2 out of 3, or 143 billion) were thrown out instead of being recycled. (Beverage Market Data Analysis from The Container Recycling Institute).

There are over 87,000 flights (commercial, cargo, private & military) in the US every single day of the year. (Air Traffic Control: By the Numbers from the National Air Traffic Controllors Association). And according to Boeing’s 2008 Environmental Report, aviation accounts for a full 2% of global man-made carbon dioxide emissions. (Boeing 2008 Environmental Report – page 3).

I’d like to give thanks to Brendan for constantly reminding me of the little things that make for huge environmental problems, and that also probably make Al Gore cry!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Two Google searches ‘produce same CO2 as boiling a kettle’
• The Environmental Impact of Cloud Computing
• How Big Is Your Tech Footprint?
• ‘Carbon cost’ of Google revealed

Tags: Al Gore, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, e-waste, Eco-Facts, Eco-Stats, Environmentalism, Plastic Bottles, Recycling

• Gear Up with Eco-Committed Companies
• The Little Things…
• I Want My Green TV
• Why are We Still Buying Bottled Water?
• Where Do You Buy Your Produce?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Carbon Emissions, Conservation, Mainstream and Green, Sustainability, Transportation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.