Fast Facts

There are many factors that contribute to why people choose to litter. The presence of other litter is a large one.  Research by Keep America Beautiful in 1999 found seventy-five percent of Americans admitted to littering in the last five years, yet ninety-nine percent of the same surveyed individuals admitted they enjoyed a clean environment.

Cigarette butts are the most littered item in the world

The cost of one nuclear weapons test alone could finance the installation of eighty thousand hand pumps, giving third world villages access to clean water.

Each year U.S. factories spew 3 million tons of toxic chemicals into the air, land, and water. That compounds the over one-half billion tons of solid hazardous wastes - we're not talking about your garbage here - that get dumped across the nation for our generation to one day clean up. (The Gale Environmental Scorecard)

More than 100 active pesticide ingredients are suspected of causing cancer, birth defects, and gene mutation.

40% of America's rivers are too polluted for fishing, swimming, or aquatic life.

1.2 trillion gallons of untreated sewage, storm water, and industrial waste are discharged into US waters annually. The US EPA has warned that sewage levels in rivers could be back to the super-polluted levels of the 1970s by the year 2016.

Each year, plastic waste in water and coastal areas kills up to:

• 100,000 marine mammals,
• 1 million sea birds, and
• countless fish.

Global Warming

Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.

Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.

Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies