Go green: Online banking

Money Is Green, but Online Banking Is Greener

Excerpt:

Some 53 percent of all U.S. households (61 million) now do their banking online; nearly half of those also pay their bills via computer. But the report says that a whopping 16.5 million trees, roughly 2.3 million tons of wood, could be spared annually in the unlikely event that all U.S. households made the switch to paperless payments. Such a move would also reduce fuel consumption by 26 million BTUs, enough energy to provide residential power to a city the size of San Francisco for a year.


Other major pluses: toxic air pollutants would be cut by 3.9 billion pounds of carbon dioxide equivalents, which is comparable to taking 355,015 cars off the road; waste water would drop by an estimated 13 billion gallons (enough to fill 19,846 swimming pools), and 1.6 billion pounds of solid waste (equal to 56,000 fully loaded garbage trucks) would be eliminated. In addition, the report says, there would be 8.5 million fewer particulates and 12.6 million fewer nitrogen oxides in the air, on par with getting 763,000 buses and 48,000 18-wheelers off the streets.

Comment: Ingdirect.com has Electric Orange which is free online bill pay. Wells Fargo is one of the leaders but the service has fees. Image from Trust Texas Bank.