Increase Your Green Energy Saving Stats

Saving Hours of Energy

You should keep track of the things that you turn off or put in sleep mode and the amount of time that these were kept off in order to see how much energy you saved.

• Each incandescent light bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb can save up to 56 watts an hour. (Also check the watts that your light bulb used before and how much a CFL bulb uses in comparison). Replacing one incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb can also save 150 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.
• Putting a computer in sleep mode means that the computer only uses about 4 watts, so subtract to find out how much you’re saving.
• Monitors typically use about 80% of the energy that a computer uses, so you can use that to calculate how much energy you save by turning off the monitor. For example, with a 200 watt computer you’d be saving 160 watts per hour by turning off the monitor.
• Here are estimates on how much energy is used by other appliances that you might find in the classroom/ throughout the school. You can work with teachers and others who would use these appliances to make sure they’re turned off and unplugged whenever they can be unplugged.
• Coffeemaker (in the teacher’s lounge, etc.): 1000 watts per hour
• Ceiling Fan: 125 watts per hour
• Stereo: 400 watts per hour
• Television: 130 watts per hour
• VCR/DVD Player: 20 watts per hour
• Printer: 400 watts per hour while printing, 30 watts per hour on standby
• Photocopier: 400 watts per hour on standby
• Overhead Projector: 400 watts per hour
• Air Conditioning/ Heating will vary a great per school depending on the kind used. You should check with office administrators. But in general, adjusting your thermostat down in the winter or up in the summer will reduce CO2 emissions by 500 pounds a year for each degree.

Waste Recycled and Reduced

Recycling paper (white paper, colored paper, envelopes, wrapping paper, cardboard, paper bags, egg cartons, newspapers, magazines, catalogs, phone books, soft cover books, milk cartons, juice boxes that are rinsed out)

• Recycling one ton of paper will save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, 7000 gallons of water, and 60 pounds of air pollutants.
• One tree produces 260 pounds of oxygen and eliminates 154 pounds of CO2. 4000 kilowatts of energy is enough to heat and air condition the average North American home for 6 months
• Recycling paper uses about 60% less energy as a whole than making paper from new materials
• Making paper from recycled materials results in 74% less air pollution and 35% less water pollution.
• Making a ton of virgin paper requires 3,688 lbs of wood, 24,000 gallons of water, 216 lbs of lime, 360 lbs of salt cake and 76 lbs of soda ash. It also creates 84 lbs of air pollutants, 36 lbs of water pollutants and 176 lbs of solid waste

Recycling aluminum (aluminum cans, foil wrap):

• Recycling a ton of aluminum cans eliminates 4 tons of carbon emission.
• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a TV for 3 hours or a 100 watt bulb for 20 hours, the equivalent of half a gallon of gasoline. A 6 pack that is recycled saves enough energy to drive a car 5 miles.
• Recycling 1 ton of aluminum saves the equivalent in energy of 2,350 gallons of gasoline (which is equivalent to the amount of electricity used by the typical home over a period of 10 years). Recycling 25 aluminum cans conserves one gallon of gasoline.
• Recycling aluminum results in 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution than producing aluminum from ore.
• An aluminum can recycled today will be back on the grocery shelf in about 60 days or less.
• Recycling glass (bottles, jars):
• Recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to run a 100 watt bulb for 4 hours.
• We save over a ton of resources for every ton of glass recycled: 1330 lbs of sand, 433 lbs of soda ash, 433 lbs of limestone and 151 lbs of feldspar
• Using recycled glass uses 40 percent less energy than making products from all new materials
• Glass can be reused an infinite number of times

Recycling plastic (bottles, jars, in some places bags):

• Recycling plastic saves twice as much energy as it takes to burn it.
• Recycling a ton of plastic bottles saves 318 gallons of gasoline, or enough energy to run a refrigerator for a month.
• Five recycled soft drink bottles makes enough fiberfill for a man's ski jacket. Thirty-six recycled bottles can make one square yard of carpet.
• Five soda bottles yield enough fiber for one extra large T-shirt.
• Last year Americans spent nearly $11 billion on over 8 billion gallons of bottled water, and then tossed over 22 billion empty plastic bottles in the trash. In bottle production alone, the more than 70 million bottles of water consumed each day in the U.S. drain 1.5 million barrels of oil over the course of one year. Nalgenes all the way!

Recycling steel (and other metals: canned food, pet food, empty aerosol cans, paint cans, etc, household metal: wire hangers, pots, tools, curtain rods, large metal appliances):

• Recycling seven steel cans saves enough energy to power a 60-watt light bulb for 26 hours
• Recycling tin and steel cans saves between 60-74% of the energy used to produce them from raw materials.

Recycling electronics:

• Dumping 315 million computers into landfills creates 1.2 billion pounds of lead, 2 million pounds of cadmium, and 400,000 pounds of mercury being dumped into waste streams.