Individual Actions

This page is dedicated to the concept that the actions of a few do matter. If everyone took a few small steps to lessen environmental impact, the overall gain would be huge. Consider the following...

If - Thens
Recycled paper - If every household in the United States replaced one box of standard facial tissues with 100 percent recycled ones, we could save 87,700 trees and 226,500 cubic feet of landfill space (330 full garbage trucks)! In addition, we would avoid 5,300 pounds of pollution emissions (Wordpress, 2007).

If you recycle a stack of newspapers 4 feet high, then you are saving a good-sized tree (Sierra Club, 2007).

Recycled aluminum - If you recycling one aluminum can, you will save enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for almost four hours or run your television for three hours (Earth 911).

Energy - If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR qualified bulb, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, more than $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of more than 800,000 cars. (Energystar.gov).

If you line dry your clothes in the spring and summer instead of using the dryer, you can avoid the emission of about 700 pounds of carbon dioxide per household, based on Energy Information Administration averages (Sierra Magazine, Sept./Oct. 2007).

Individual Actions Subcommittee
The individual actions subcommittee is working to create campaigns and initiatives that promote individual involvement in areas that lessen environmental impact.

Membership in the individual actions subcommittee includes:

• Karla Diehl, Education Professions
• Harriet Douglas, Student Support Services
• Sydney Duncan, English
• Liz Keller, Library
• James Limbaugh, Institutional Effectiveness
• Monika Urbanski, Institutional Effectiveness
• Joyce Wheaton, Education Professions

Updates
Subcommittee members have designed an electronic survey that was administered to FSU faculty, staff, and students in Dec. 2007. The committee received over 500 survey responses. We will soon post results gathered from this information.