Environmental Infographics in Honor of Earth Day

In hon­or of Earth Day this past week­end, here are a few envi­ron­men­tal info­graph­ics cour­tesy of GOOD.

Why Americans Don't Recycle

Info­graph­ic: Why Don’t Amer­i­cans Recy­cle?.
Just half of Amer­i­cans recy­cle dai­ly, and 13 per­cent don’t recy­cle at all. Most peo­ple rec­og­nize the ben­e­fits of recy­cling, but they’re often not sure which items can be recy­cled and find the process incon­ve­nient and time-con­sum­ing (a top­ic of per­son­al inter­est to me).


Your Daily Dose of Water

Inter­ac­tive Info­graph­ic: Your Dai­ly Dose of Water
In Amer­i­ca, the aver­age per­son uses near­ly 2,000 gal­lons of water per day. Every time you flush the toi­let, wash your hands, dri­ve your car, or take a bite of your lunch, you’re using water. The biggest sur­prise may be that 95 per­cent of your water foot­print isn’t from a long show­er or run­ning your wash­ing machine—it’s from the food, ener­gy and prod­ucts you use every day. Check out our inter­ac­tive info­graph­ic that shows all the ways your dai­ly dose of water adds up on a typ­i­cal day.


Ways to Stop Wasting Water

Info­graph­ic: 10 Ways to Stop Wast­ing Water
When it comes to get­ting clean water at home, most of us turn on the tap and don’t give it a sec­ond thought. But for near­ly one bil­lion peo­ple, find­ing clean water is a dai­ly strug­gle. Lack of access in their homes or their com­mu­ni­ty can cause a mul­ti­tude of health, eco­nom­ic, and qual­i­ty of life prob­lems. For those of us for­tu­nate enough to have clean water access, it’s more impor­tant than ever to help con­serve this impor­tant resource. It’s esti­mat­ed that a fam­i­ly of four can sur­vive on 3 gal­lons of water a day but in Amer­i­ca, a house­hold of four uses up to 400 gal­lons of water a day. Check out this info­graph­ic to learn about the top cul­prits for water waste and how fix­es both small and large can sig­nif­i­cant­ly shrink your water foot­print at home.


Renewable Energy Sources

Inter­ac­tive Info­graph­ic: Which Renew­able Ener­gies Do We Use Most and At What Cost?
In the U.S., only about 8 per­cent of all ener­gy use comes from renew­able sources. Petro­le­um is cur­rent­ly our largest con­sumed source of ener­gy (37 per­cent), with nat­ur­al gas (25 per­cent), coal (21 per­cent), nuclear pow­er (9 per­cent) and renew­ables fol­low­ing behind. How­ev­er, renew­able ener­gy con­sump­tion is ris­ing steadi­ly, with the largest increas­es in bio­fu­els, hydro­elec­tric pow­er, and wind. Cur­rent­ly, the cost of gen­er­at­ing elec­tric­i­ty with coal and nat­ur­al gas is still cheap­er by kWh, but new tech­nol­o­gy and inter­est in renew­able resources is help­ing alter­na­tive ener­gies become more cost-com­pet­i­tive. Check out this info­graph­ic for a look at which of these renew­able sources are used most wide­ly in Amer­i­ca and at what cost.


What's An LED?

Info­graph­ic: What’s an LED?
When it comes to bright ideas, LED lights (or light-emit­ting diodes) are incred­i­bly ener­gy effi­cient and long last­ing. Unlike tra­di­tion­al incan­des­cent or even CFL bulbs, they illu­mi­nate when the move­ment of elec­trons across semi­con­duc­tor cre­ates light. His­tor­i­cal­ly, they’ve been too expen­sive to be prac­ti­cal for most res­i­den­tial use, but com­pa­nies are work­ing to make it more afford­able for con­sumers to have at home. Learn more about poten­tial advan­tages of LED lights and how they work.


How Does a Hybrid Car Work?

Inter­ac­tive Info­graph­ic: How Does a Hybrid Car Work?
These days, peo­ple are more con­cerned than ever about con­sum­ing less gas. Fuel prices are sky high, plus there’s also more urgency than ever to decrease depen­dence on oil. It’s no won­der that hybrid cars are increas­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty as more man­u­fac­tur­ers are offer­ing hybrid mod­els of some of their most well-known cars. You’ve prob­a­bly seen lots of hybrid cars on the road, and maybe you even own one. But have you ever won­dered how they work? Hybrid cars uti­lize both stored elec­tric­i­ty and gaso­line, result­ing in a ride that is more fuel effi­cient. Click on the inter­ac­tive info­graph­ic link to learn more about this break­through tech­nol­o­gy that’s becom­ing more com­mon­place on America’s roads.