Celebrate UTSA Earth Week, April 16-22: 20 things you need to know
(April 19, 2012) -- Each year on April 22, the world celebrates Earth Day to raise awareness of the world's precious resources and how we use them.
UTSA has expanded the earth-friendly organization with Earth Week, a weeklong series of events to raise awareness of how individuals treat the environment.
Haven't made it any of UTSA Earth Week events yet? Take a look at these 22 EcoFacts to show a little love to Mother Earth.
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EcoFacts
EcoFact 1: Tissue and toilet paper use is tearing up virgin forests in North America, as Americans use 50 pounds per person of these items annually.
EcoFact 2: On average, food travels 2,000 miles from its point of origin to its point of consumption.
EcoFact 3: A leaky faucet wastes about 2,700 gallons a year at a drip per second. A
leaky toilet can waste more than 100 gallons per day.
EcoFact 4: Heating water accounts for 15-25 percent of the total energy used in a single-family home.
EcoFact 5: Brazil has more cars that burn ethanol than burn gasoline. Ethanol's carbon dioxide emissions are canceled out by growing the plants used to produce it.
EcoFact 6: Dirty oil from one oil change could pollute one million gallons of water -- a year's supply for at least 50 people.
EcoFact 7: If the nearly 50 billion cans trashed in 2005 had been recycled, we could have saved enough energy to power 1.3 million American homes.
EcoFact 8: 40-50 percent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten in the United States.
EcoFact 9: The average American adult receives nearly 41 pounds of junk mail each year, about 17 pounds of which ends up in landfills.
EcoFact 10: Americans recycle less than a third of our garbage, which is taking up valuable space in landfills, polluting groundwater and releasing toxic fumes.
EcoFact 11: At the American rate of consumption, we would need more than five Earths to sustain the population.
EcoFact 12: America's per capita carbon emissions are more than four times the global average.
EcoFact 13: Drive 444 miles in an electric-gasoline hybrid car and you would produce as much CO2 as a 100-mile drive in a conventional SUV (166 pounds, if you were wondering).
EcoFact 14: The species at the top of the ocean food chain -- large, predatory fish -- have declined 90 percent in the last 50 years.
EcoFact 15: Transportation is typically the biggest environmental impact of an American wedding.
EcoFact 16: The average office worker uses 10,000 sheets of copy paper annually. Switching to recycled paper is the first step.
EcoFact 17: For every $11 spent on groceries, $1 goes toward packaging. Up to 40 percent of the nation's trash is discarded packaging material.
EcoFact 18: Vampire power is energy expended by home electronics when not in use, and costs the United States up to $3.5 billion annually.
EcoFact 19: Textbooks account for about one fifth of the American book-publishing market, consuming 200,000 tons of paper annually (or about 4 million trees).
EcoFact 20: The world consumes more than one million plastic bags per minute.
EcoFact 21: Using a microwave for small- to medium-sized portions can cut in half the energy you use to prepare food.
EcoFact 22: American businesses, individuals and institutions produce approximately 4.5 pounds of trash per day per person, which is at least double what western Europeans produce.
Source: The EcoQuiz Desk Knowledge Cards
Events
Join the PEACE Center and Wellbeing Services for Denim Day, a day of learning about the importance of consent and why we wear denim on the last Wednesday of the month each April during Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Stop by our Denim Day display to take a photo in front of our Denim Wall, spin the "Is It Consent?" Wheel, and get a Concha or goodie.
Student Union Window Lounge, Main CampusLearn to use Zotero®, a citation manager that can help you store and organize citations you find during your research. Zotero can generate bibliographies in various styles, insert in-text citations and allow you to share sources with collaborators.
Virtual EventThis event will acknowledge graduating seniors from the McNair Scholars program at UTSA before inducting the new cohort of scholars into the program.
North Paseo Building (NPB 5.140), Main CampusAt this memorable celebration, UTSA graduates will be introduced one-by-one to cross the stage and accept their doctoral degrees.
Arts Building Recital Hall, Main CampusRoadrunner Walk is an event for graduating students to have a memorable walk on campus to celebrate an important milestone and their achievements. Graduates will walk along the Paseo while being celebrated by the UTSA community, friends, and family members.
Student Union Paseo, Main CampusCelebrate the accomplishments of College of Education and Human Development, College for Health, Community and Policy, College of Sciences and University College.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St.Celebrate the accomplishments of Alvarez College of Business, College of Liberal and Fine Arts and Klesse College of Engineering and Integrated Design.
Alamodome, 100 Montana St.