Since it's Earth Day  today, I thought I'd share with you a new Wells Fargo initiative encouraging folks to "go green" with online only statements.

It's actually quite cool: To be automatically entered for a chance to win some green — one lucky winner will claim the grand prize of $25,000! — sign up for online only statements for all your eligible personal and/or business accounts (student loans included) by June 10. Check out the Sweepstakes Rules for all the necessary legalese including how to enter for free.

Why go paperless? Well, because you'll be part of an effort that saved over 180 tons of paper in 2007 ¹. From manufacturing to disposal, the benefits of eliminating that much paper adds up in some pretty dramatic ways. Last year, customers who signed up for online only statements helped the environment by:

• Saving 562 tons of wood, the equivalent of 3,888 trees

• Conserving 6,605 million BTUs (British Thermal Units) of energy, enough to supply energy to 73 homes for a year

• Eliminating 4,686 pounds of sulfur dioxide, the equivalent of taking 852 18-wheelers off the road for a year

• Cutting 986,290 pounds of greenhouse gases, the equivalent of taking 90 passenger cars off the road for a year

• Eliminating 2,146 pounds of particulates, the equivalent of taking 192 buses off the road for a year

• Saving 3,276,032 gallons of water, enough to fill 5 large swimming pools

• Eliminating 389,877 pounds of solid waste, enough to fill 15 full-sized garbage trucks

Plus, if you're anything like me, going paperless also helps you be more organized. I receive very few paper statements at this point in my life, so with pdfs  of my online statements stored on my home computer (and, of course, responsibly backed up on my portable hard drive), everything's in one place and easy to find.

Small step for you, big victory for our planet!

¹ Statistic used for comparisons based on research done by the Paper Task Force. For more information, contact Environmental Defense at www.papercalculator.org .