Shutters Decrease Your Carbon Footprint

You’re hearing a lot about Carbon Footprint nowadays, but what exactly is Carbon Footprint and how do shutters and window coverings from Best Buy shutters help you and planet Earth?

In general, Carbon Footprint it is a calculation that tracks how much environmental oxygen is converted into carbon dioxide gas or CO2.

Some of it occurs naturally in the environment. For example, after mammals breathe in air, they breathe out a waste mixture containing much higher amounts of carbon dioxide. Most of life on earth seems to do that, take in oxygen, whether through lungs or gills, and breathe out carbon dioxide.

Gratefully, Mother Nature, in her wisdom, has a system set up where plants take in the carbon dioxide animals create and expel oxygen back into the air. It’s a marvelous exchange system. Plants need animals to make the carbon dioxide they need, and animals need plants for the oxygen they provide. Talk about a nice relationship and needing each other!

Now, had earth remained more primitive and not experienced the tinkering, inventiveness, and explosive population growth of mankind, things might have just continued to thump nicely along. But that, of course, was not in the cards.

Human activity produces a disproportionate amount of carbon dioxide. Of all God’s creatures, we just don’t breathe in and breathe out to produce carbon. Nope. We burn things! And when things burn, they turn oxygen into CO2. Whether we burn wood, coal, gasoline, oil, or jet fuel, we’re going to get CO2. Heck, when we burn plants or forests, we get CO2.

• CO2 is a recognized problem because it causes air pollution. It is a primary component of smog. Air pollution makes us sick.
• CO2 causes more of the sun’s radiant heat to get captured in the air, and it is feared this disrupts global temperatures and weather patterns.
• CO2 is toxic to animal life. For example, mass fish killings have occurred due to high concentrations of it in water. The fish literally suffocated and died.

Now the rub is that when scientists and socially conscious people get to looking at how human activity greatly adds to the Carbon Footprint, it is feared that human activity outstrips Mother Nature’s ability to renew oxygen. Here’s some scary stuff to ponder. The average person in the United States emits 27 tons of carbon into the air every year! That’s 54,000 pounds per person per year!

How can that be?!

Watch this: one gallon of gasoline weighs about 6½ pounds. Now when that gasoline gets burned up in a vehicle engine, it combines with oxygen molecules taken from the air, and though we might not notice, air has weight. That 6½ pounds of gasoline combines with air and comes out the exhaust pipe as 20 pounds of carbon dioxide. If your vehicle gets 20 miles a gallon, you’re making a pound of carbon dioxide for every mile driven.

• Electricity accounts for about 38% of those 27 tons of carbon.
• Transportation accounts for about 32%, whether driving or flying.
• Industry accounts for about 14%.

Folks are very concerned about Carbon Footprints, and that concern becomes bigger and bigger

every year. It’s why we’re going toward electric cars and smart houses. And that’s where Best Buy Shutters helps.

Did you know that having window treatments over the windows in your home, office, or business reduces your Carbon Footprint? Yep. Shutters, drapes, blinds, and the like save electricity. Shutter help insulate meaning the cold stays out in winter and the heat is kept at bay in summer. Additionally, those terrific looking shutters provide increased privacy, superior light control, and add affordable, stylish elegance to any home or office.

The average three-bedroom home in Las Vegas uses about 11,000 kWh of electricity per year, which yields about 4½ tons of carbon when it is produced. Putting up shutters or window coverings saves electricity. And when you save electricity you, of course, save money, and you help save the planet. Adding shutters can reduce your Carbon Footprint by a full ton every year!

And while we’re talking about saving the planet, here’s something special to think about. Best Buy Shutters manufactures your window coverings right here in Las Vegas. So while other companies are manufacturing out of state and even overseas, loading products on fossil fueled trucks, trains, and even boats that further add to pollution, we’re a short drive right down the road from you.

Your Best Buy Shutters combined with the strides being made to provide clean energy means a better tomorrow for everyone.