Sustainability at Central

Resources and Green Facts

Interested in what sustainable activities are happing on campus? Check out all of Central's sustainability activities.

The average Americans throws away 10 times their own weight in garbage every year.
Americans throw away enough writing and office paper annually to build a wall 12 feet high, stretching from New York City to Los Angeles.

Recycling is more popular than democracy. A survey showed that more people recycled than voted during the 1996 presidential election.
One ton of paper from recycled pulp saves 17 trees, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, 7,999 gallons of water, 4.200 kilowatt hours (enough to heat your home for half a year), 390 gallons of oil, and prevents 60 pounds of air pollutants.
Producing a soda can from aluminum uses 95% less energy than manufacturing a can from ore and produces 95% less air pollution and 97% less water pollution.
Recycling just one aluminum can save enough energy to power a television for three hours.
By recycling one ton of glass, we save the equivalent of nine gallons of fuel

The 14 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1980. (1998 was the warmest year ever measured globally).
Almost half of the greenhouse gases emitted from the average home come from driving our family vehicles. One very easy way to lessen the impact is not to use your vehicle to drive to locations within easy walking distance.
Don't let your vehicle idle. If you are going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds, turn off your engine, except in traffic. Idling your vehicle for more than 10 seconds uses more fuel than it would take to restart your engine. On cold mornings, excessive idling is not necessary as a vehicle engine only requires 20 seconds of running time in order to circulate the engine oil. So remember, turning off your engine saves gas AND the environment!

Every year, Americans drink more than 100 billion cups of coffee. Of those, 14.4 billion are served in disposable paper cups, enough to wrap the earth 55 times if placed end-to-end! Those paper cups contain a plastic lining made from a petrochemical that would produce enough energy to heat 8,300 homes.

140 billion gallons of gasoline a year are consumed by Americans according to the US Energy Department (2006).
Americans are expected to use 161 billion gallons of gasoline by the year 2017 without any changes to our existing energy policy.
Americans could reduce by 90% the amount of vehicle emissions by using ethanol from plant cellulose - the material in cornstalks, grass and trees.
If the United States altered its energy policies by producing 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels a year, the growth of greenhouses gases from vehicles could be stopped by the year 2017 according to the Bush administration.
In order to produce 35 billion gallons of alternative fuel, the United States would have to increase its amount of corn based ethanol seven (7) times its production level of 2006.