(Gaithersburg, MD) -- A Maryland company is proving that simple acts can have a big impact. 

Sodexo announced on Monday that after only one year, its switch to recycled napkins in 1,300 food service operations nationwide has resulted in saving nearly ten million gallons of water, more than 23,000 trees, half a million gallons of oil and five and a half million kilowatts of energy.
    
The Maryland-based company began using two types of recycled napkins last year in a move to shift to environment- friendly practices.  Energy was saved because less power is used to recycle paper products than to create them from virgin material.  Enough was saved through the napkin program to power 600 American homes for an entire year.
    
In addition, more than half a million gallons of oil were saved, 38 tanker trucks worth, and 41 tons of pollutants were kept out of the environment. 4,131 cubic yards of paper were diverted from landfill space. That's enough to cover an entire football field with a two and a half feet deep stack of paper.
    
In addition, Sodexo is bringing a new napkin program to its clients which should yield additional environmental savings. The program has resulted in a 25 to 50 percent reduction in the actual number of paper napkins used thanks to new dispensers that dispense a single napkin at a time.
    
The calculations are made by the Recycled Products Cooperative, which says that each ton of 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper that displaces a ton of virgin fiber paper saves 7,000 gallons of water, 4,100 kilowatt hours of electricity and prevents 60 pounds of pollutants from entering the atmosphere.
    
In addition, use of recycled products helps protect wildlife habitat, diverts useful items from landfills, which saves both space and money, and helps preserve the earth's natural beauty.
    
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