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Keith McCord Reporting Whether it's a weed-pulling project or taking a load of newspapers to the recycle bin, people are doing a variety of Earth Day projects this weekend. Some of them are very simple but they can make a big difference.
Take a small fluorescent light bulb, for example. It's only 13 watts, but it puts out the same light as a regular 60-watt bulb, and does it ever save energy!
Scott Henriksen and his colleagues at GSBS Architects in Salt Lake spent today walking through their neighborhoods giving out free fluorescent bulbs. "And it's estimated that if every home in the united states replaced just one incandescent bulb with a fluorescent bulb, there would be enough energy saved to power 2.5 million homes for one entire year," Henriksen said.
Skip Bourgeois, also with GSBS Architects, said, "Everyone in our firm of 100 people got 10 light bulbs to hand out to their neighbors, so that's a thousand bulbs to hand out today."
Because of its commitment to energy-efficient designs in all its projects, the employees of GSBS Architects decided to promote Earth Day this year with this light bulb give-away. Last Friday afternoon, they all gathered around a big table at the office and started putting information labels on 1,000 compact fluorescent bulbs. The message on the box: It just takes one to start making a difference.
David Brems, with GSBS Architects, said, "Buildings use 70 percent of all electricity, and most of that electricity goes into lighting. So more efficient lighting translates into dramatically less energy used."
The life expectancy of these bulbs is about seven years-- that's longer than incandescent bulbs. They'll save about $50 in energy costs over that period.
"So it's just our part, and we hope that it will motivate people to do more things to help the earth," Bourgeois said.
Some of those employees will be out again tomorrow on the actual "Earth Day," which was been observed since 1970.
