Peon Pulpit Presents: Tips To Save The Environment

I keep seeing all these adds on TV where some famous movie star is telling me how I can save the Earth by brewing my coffee with a gold filter (never mind that it might cause you to have a heart attack...the coffee does taste better), or some such thing. This has inspired me. I've decided it's time for the Peon Pulpit to get in the game. So without further ado, here's the first round of the Peon Pulpit's "Save the Earth!" tips:

Environmental Tip #1

Stop buying DVDs.

Seriously. In 2005, an estimated 1.2 billion DVDs were sold. Now, that's a lot of plastic isn't it? The average DVD by itself weighs 16 grams. So if my math is right, that's:

1,200,000,000 (X) 16 = 19,200,000,000 grams = 42,328,754.3 lbs of plastic.

And that's not even including the packaging material. The case weighs about 65 grams. So again with the math:

1,200,000,000 (X) 65 = 78,000,000,000 grams = 171,960,565 lbs of plastic.

So all in all, DVD sales in 2005 resulted in the use of 214,289,319 pounds of non-biodegradable plastic. Wow, that is a lot of plastic. That of course says nothing about the cost of the printing materials, the number of trees cut to print the paper inserts, fuel to transport them to stores, etc. How much oil is used in that process? How many pollutants are released in the manfacture of a DVD copy of "A River Runs Through It"? What contribution does all that plastic manufacture have on global warming??

Suffice to say, you need to stop buying DVDs. And to think Jennifer Gardner is all worried about bio-degradable paper coffee filters...