It's great to see a big retailer giving back to the environment and the public. And now it's Home Depot's turn to be heroes.

In honor of Earth Day (which is April 22nd if you didn't already know) Home Depot plans to give away over ONE MILLION compact fluorescent lightbulbs to anyone who visits a U.S. store.

This generous gift will not only make the store look very good, but it will do all sorts of good for the environment. Here are a few of the facts I garnered from the Home Depot website:

The 1,000,000 fluorescent lightbulbs being given away will result in...

• $12 million savings in annual energy costs
• Reduce Carbon Dioxide emmissions by over 196 million lbs - equal to 70,000 cars being removed from the highway

But that's not all. I did some more digging, and found that the average compact fluorescent has some other great benefits...

• They use 2/3 less energy than a regular bulb, so they last roughly ten times longer
• They emmit 70% less heat than ordinary bulbs - so, they're safer
• They'll save you roughly $30 or more over the life of the bulb, vs a conventional bulb

This certainly seems to be a win-win situation from Home Depot. So run along to your local store on April 22nd and do yourself and the environment some good.

Enlightening photo courtesy of RubberPaw