I know some of you secretly love reading my fun facts [0] as much as I do writing them (and acting like a know it all at parties telling people them), so I thought I'd give you a double dosing this week. I believe more and more importance should be placed on Earth Day every year so it's totally worthy of its own set of fabulous fun facts. Did you know that in some elementary schools, after Halloween and Christmas, Earth Day is the third largest celebrated holiday? Or how about that it is now observed in 175 countries and is the largest secular modern day holiday in the world? For more fun facts and to learn how much energy you save when you recycle one aluminum can,

• Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to watch a TV for three hours - it's equivalent to half a gallon of gasoline.
• Earth Day is a relatively new holiday and was first celebrated on April 22 in 1970. More than 20 million Americans participated in this first Earth Day celebration
• Earth Day was founded by a senator of Wisconsin and the day is credited for creating the environmentalism movement.
• April 22 is the first official day of Spring in the Northern hemisphere and of Fall in the Southern hemisphere and was chosen to be Earth Day for this reason.



• Never underestimate the importance of recycling: if every newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year. Unfortunately only 27% of all American newspapers are recycled.
• More than 20,000,000 Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of tinfoil. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.
• Only 11% of the earth's surface is used to grow food.
• The world's first national park was started in 1872 at Yellowstone National Park in the US.



• The first major international conference on environmental issues was held in Sweden in 1972 and was sponsored by the United Nations.
• The first wildlife refuge was formed on Pelican Island Florida in 1903.
• The patron Saint of ecologists is St. Francis and the first proclamation of Earth Day was made by the mayor of San Francisco in 1970.
• A highlight of the annual Earth Day ceremony at the United Nations is the ringing of the Peace Bell that was given to the UN by Japan. It is made from coins given by school children to further peace on our planet.

Happy Earth Day [1]!