A few years ago we had a Five Friday Facts – Christmas Edition and a post on real vs. fake holiday symbols. Today’s Five Friday Facts are less holiday centric, but they all come from the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Winter Tips.
- Approximately 33 million live Christmas trees are sold in North America every year.
- In 2011, Americans using products with the Design for the Environment (DfE) label cut the use of harmful chemicals by more than 756 million pounds.
- A typical household spends about $1,900 a year on energy bills and contributes twice the amount of greenhouse gases to the environment as an average car.
- Heating accounts for 34% of all annual utility usage and is part of what makes an average home twice the emitter of carbon dioxide emissions as a vehicle.
- If every American household reduced their water use by 10 gallons on just Thanksgiving Day, it would save more than 1 billion gallons of water, as well as save any energy or materials used to pump or treat tap water.
Image source: Metropolitan Museum of Art
