Easy Ways to Go Green
Purpose of Activity: To inform residents of simple ways they can reduce their impact on the earth.
Materials Needed:
 Butcher Paper
 Pages of the information found
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Residence Life
Residential Education
Sustainability
501 North Highland
P.O. Box 210182
Tucson, Arizona 85721-0182
(520) 626-9179
[email protected]
Ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle
Paper use
Energy savings
Laptop vs. PC
Consumption habits
Going organic
Replacing 1 incandescent light bulb with a compact florescent light bulb can save 150 pounds of
carbon dioxide a year
Use reusable shopping bags- 420,000 gallons of oil are required to manufacture 100 million
bags; 21 billion plastic bags are used every year in the United States. Many stores will give you a
credit on your bill for using a reusable bag.
Print Double Sided- for every ton of paper made, about 80,000 gallons of water are used. Each
year, the US uses 4 million tons of copy paper
If you leave the water on while you brush your teeth, approximately 3 gallons of water are used.
Go Reusable! In 2006, Americans spent $11 billion on water bottles then tossed over 22 billion
empty plastic bottles in the trash. It take 1.5 million barrels of oil to make 1 years worth of
plastic bottles. It takes about 700 years for plastic bottles to begin to decompose.
Unplug chargers when not in use
Drink tap water, seriously, there’s nothing wrong with it! Average savings buying bottled water
is $500 a year. That’s a semester’s worth of text books!
The US has 3091 active landfills and over 10000 old municipal landfills.
Recycled plastic is made into plastic lumber, clothing, flower pots, insulation for sleeping bags,
clothing, ski jackets, car bumpers, and more.
The steel from more than 84% of appliances (39 million) recycled last year yielded enough steel
to build approximately 160 football stadiums.
Every year the US fills enough garbage trucks to form a line that would stretch from the earth
halfway to the moon.
Buy items in the largest size you can to avoid excess packaging. Buying larger sized items often
costs less per ounce.
 Buy rechargeable batteries to avoid throwing away batteries and packaging. You only have to
buy a few packages of batteries over several years when you go rechargeable.
 Just say no to receipts at gas stations and ATMs. If everyone said no to these receipts the paper
saved would circle the earth 15 times.
 Carpool! It reduces emissions and makes the ride more fun for everyone.
 Take a recycle mug to the Union. You save on waste and get a discount on drinks. We throw
away 25 billion Styrofoam cups per year. 500 years from now those cups will still be in a
landfill.
 Eat less meat.
Residence Life
Residential Education
Sustainability
501 North Highland
P.O. Box 210182
Tucson, Arizona 85721-0182
(520) 626-9179
[email protected]