THIS Saturday, the world will set out to celebrate yet another Earth Day and it may come as a surprise that is the third most celebrated ‘holiday’ in many countries, that is after Christmas and Halloween. So, today I leave you with some facts on this special celebration.

1 Earth Day was founded by a senator of Wisconsin and the day is credited for creating the environmentalism movement.

2 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.

3 More than 20 million Hershey’s Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of tinfoil. All that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it.

4 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.

5 Only 11 per cent of the earth’s surface is used to grow food.

6 It is a known fact that if every newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250 million trees each year.

7 As part of the celebration, some communities make Earth Day a ‘Car-Free Day’.

8 Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to watch a TV for three hours — it’s equivalent to half a gallon of gasoline.

9 The energy we save when we recycle one glass bottle is enough to light a traditional light bulb for four hours.

10 Eighty-four per cent of all household waste can be recycled.

— Melaine Warren