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Environmental Awareness Guide

Environmental Awareness is realizing that our natural environment must be sustainable to survive. It is being well-informed about the ways in which we can act to make choices that benefit the planet. Some of these choices include recycling, conserving energy and water, and reducing waste. Preserving the environment is a gift that we can give to future generations.

Bird on a Branch

Image Source: Photo by Dorothea Oldani on Unsplash

The Canopy Project

  • Since 2010, EARTHDAY.ORG has planted tens of millions of trees with The Canopy Project.
  • The benefits of trees are extraordinary! Trees provide food, energy, and income to help communities achieve long-term economic and environmental sustainability. 
  • Trees filter the air and help reverse the impacts of climate change. In just one year, a mature leafy tree produces as much oxygen as 10 people inhale!
  • Since the beginning of the 20th century, the world’s forests have lost about 20% of their coverage. According to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, about 18 million acres of forest are lost every year, and roughly half of Earth’s tropical forests have already been cleared.

forest

Image Source: Photo by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash

The Perils of Plastic

Facts:

  • Less than 9% of all plastic gets recycled.
  • There are 10 million tons of plastic dumped in our oceans each year. That's equal to more than a garbage truckload every minute!
  • Half of all plastic produced is for single-use purposes - used for just minutes and then thrown away.
  • About 1 million marine animals are killed by plastic pollution each year.
  • All (100%) mussels collected have been found to contain microplastics.
  • Humans eat (yes, eat) over 40 pounds of plastic in their lifetime!
  • There will be more plastics in our oceans than fish by 2050.
  • Over the last 10 years, we have produced more plastic than during the whole of the last century.

You can read more at Plastic Oceans International.

plastics on beach

Image Source: Photo by Dustan Woodhouse on Unsplash