Tag: change

America's Effort, Global Impact, Individual Change

11 Facts about Recycling

Taylor Houghton

On a previous blog post I talked about what can and cannot be recycled. I can across this neat website! They gave such interesting facts about recycling I had to share!! Image result for recycling

11 Facts about Recycling:

  1. The average person generates over 4 pounds of trash every day and about 1.5 tons of solid waste per year.
  2. Americans make more than 200 million tons of garbage each year, enough to fill Busch Stadium from top to bottom twice a day. Next time you’re at a sporting event or tailgate, host a trash-free tailgate using only recyclable materials sign up for Trash-Free Tailgate.
  3. The EPA estimates that 75% of the American waste stream is recyclable, but we only recycle about 30% of it.
  4. We generate 21.5 million tons of food waste each year. If we composted that food, it would reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars off the road.
  5. Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to listen to a full album on your iPod. Recycling 100 cans could light your bedroom for two whole weeks. Sign up for 5 Cans Challenge to save energy and show off your creative side.
  6. The Container Recycling Institute (CRI) estimates that the 36 billion aluminum cans land filled last year had a scrap value of more than $600 million.
  7. Americans throw away about 28 billion bottles and jars every year.
  8. Over 87% of Americans have access to curbside or drop-off paper recycling programs.
  9. In 2009, Americans threw away almost 9 million tons of glass. That could fill enough tractor trailers to stretch from NYC to LA (and back!).
  10. In 2010, paper recycling had increased over 89% since 1990.
  11. A glass container can go from a recycling bin to a store shelf in as few as 30 days.Image result for recycling the world

Be the change! Recycle! This may be something small that you are doing but it makes a BIG difference!!! Image result for recycling the world

The link is below:

https://www.dosomething.org/us/facts/11-facts-about-recycling

America's Effort, Individual Change

Why we should consider Indoor Farming

Taylor Houghton

Indoor farming!? Ever heard of it? I didn’t know much about it either until I did some research. Indoor farming is the future of urban farming!! You can grow your crops at any time of the year and anywhere in the world! Think of the possibilities! Not only that but we don’t have to worry about the use of pesticides! Why? Because it’s indoors and that means no bugs! We can create the prefect crops and plants! Especially with today’s food production. There is a demand for food increase. Crops are currently being grown where climate conditions and in land that allows. Indoor farming expands this by allowing the crops to be grown ANYWHERE and AT ANY TIME! (I had to restate that and put a little emphasis on it because that is just amazing to me!)Image result for indoor farming

Side note: Although indoor farming is great, this doesn’t mean we should just give up on saving and taking care of our planet. I believe this is just an alternate solution especially with the population increase. It is also great to get year round veggies and fruit!!

 

Let’s talk about the benefits:

Indoor farming is more productive! It is so much more productive than traditional farming that it can produce 100 times more! It is because of the direction that one grows the crops. This may be confusing, let me explain. Indoor farms are designed vertically so it allows multiple different levels of production. For example, if you wanted to grow in your own home, traditionally you would have the plant sitting in a corner growing. Indoor farming allows you to grow on or behind the walls! Confused? Me too. Look at the picture below to get a better idea. 

This is just talking about your home. Imagine the possibles of a whole businesses or perhaps a warehouse of some sort. The production would overwhelming!

In the long run, indoor farming is more sustainable for a number of reasons! It uses less water (90% less), less power, less space and weather doesn’t have devastating effects on the crops like traditional farming does. Not to mention a recent concern with land space, no need to worry anymore! Indoor farming takes up not nearly as much space.Image result for indoor farming

We can grown organic food with out spending the extra money. We don’t need to use chemical pesticides or any chemicals in that matter to produce good crops. The environmental factors will not effect them because they are INDOOR! As I said before, fruits and vegetables YEAR ROUND! It is possible to harvest anything at any time! You want strawberries in December, not a problem! It’s so easy and simple!Image result for indoor farming

Technology is taking over traditional farming! There is no more for a need of fertilizers, getting down and dirty, or working harder than you need to! All of the requirements are good quality soil with nutrients, excellent lighting system, water, and of course space to grow. It’s that simple.Image result for indoor farming what do you need

Check out this Facebook video link!! Future farming might be in a warehouse in New York City!! Check out The Bowery Farming Company!! 

http://business.facebook.com/NowThisNews/videos/1384836634939790/