Calculate Your Ecological Footprint

a) http://sustainability.publicradio.org/consumerconsequences/ Reflect on the results. What is your

score? How many Planet Earths? Reflect on what this means to you and your family. Evaluate your

lifestyle and your family's lifestyle? Do you think changes need to be made? Why or why not? If so,

What kind of changes? What do you think about these results?

b) Take a look at your specific consumption over 24 hours during a typical day and note and discuss

the following:

1. Energy usage – think about and discuss all of the energy you use in one day.

2. Fuel usage – think about and discuss the fuel you use in one day.

3. Food Intake – think about and discuss all of the food you consume in one day.

4. Water use – think about and discuss all the water that you use in one day.

5. Packaging – think about and discuss all of the items you handle in one day and their packaging.

I did the test based on my family’s household. The impact on the building of our home is a two, as well as the impact of electricity. The impact of generated waste is surprisingly zero. However, the transportation is the highest, at twenty. The impact of food consumed is a six and the impact of goods and services is a five. The number of Earth’s it would take to sustain the entire planet if everyone lived like my family is 7.9. I feel as if my family has an acceptable number for electricity, building of our home, food consumed, and goods and services. Although the numbers are not perfect, in our home we always have friends and family over. Each meal is more than just the six of us; it usually includes a bunch of high school boys.  Transportation impact is what my family and I need to be more aware of the most. There are six drivers in the house and we all go in different directions, which is not environmentally friendly.  Each of the children in the household participates in after school activities that we have to drive to and from. We have all tried to find carpools, and we do not live near anyone going in the same direction. My brother could maybe leave early for school and drop my sister off, but that also means someone has to pick her up. My family and I can try to buy less goods and since all the girls are about the same size we could share. Becoming more aware about what we are throwing in the trash and recycling. I was shocked about the impact of waste, I was not expecting it to be a zero, and was not expecting the transportation impact to be that high.

The twenty-four hour consumption made me take a closer look at my daily life. I use electricity for my phone and computer charger. I always have my television and radio clock plugged in. Because it is summer I have two fans that are on during the night. My hair dryer and flat iron are only plugged in for about ten minutes total while I do my hair.  The refrigerator and lamps are also always plugged in. During the summer, I use a lot more fuel on a daily basis than any other time during the year.  I have to drive approximately 15 miles each way to and from work.  I know that I could save fuel by not using the air conditioner, but since I work in a service industry and have to dress in a uniform, that is not a realistic thing to do.  I am a very safe driver and do not speed, so I am using fuel conservatively.  I try to plan my outings so that if I need to make multiple stops, I do them in a systematic order to use as little fuel as possible.

My food intake is usually pretty simple. I always eat cereal with skim milk in the morning. During this 24 hour period I had a half of turkey with mayo, mustard and cheese sandwich for lunch. For a snack I had a protein bar, and for dinner a small salad with blue cheese dressing. Every meal I had a glass or two of water, all from a Brita filter. My water use, I would say is the second highest thing that I use. I am constantly washing my hands throughout the day. I used the washing machine and dishwasher today, which uses a lot of water. I also took about an eight minute shower.

Even though my household scored well in the 24 hr. study, I think that there is still a great deal we could do to become better stewards of our environment.  Becoming more aware of the food we purchase could make a measurable impact on our environment.  If we made an effort to shop at local farmer markets we would be supporting local farmers.  By supporting local farmers we would also save on fuel consumption and emissions because the produce would not be transported from other states.  By eating more locally grown food we also become healthier because we are consuming less chemically altered foods.  We can make sure that the foods we buy are chemical free and the animals are not fed grains infused with hormones and other dangerous ingredients. We could make our home more efficient if we added a water filtration system because we would not have a need to purchase bottled water.  Reducing the amount of bottled water would ultimately help reduce the amount of plastics being used, even though we recycle.  Another simple change we could make would be to purchase recycled shopping bags.  These would be used each time we went to the store.  By using shopping bags, we would no longer need to have groceries packed in plastic bags that we either throw away or put in the recycling bin.  On average, a trip to the grocery store means bringing home 10 – 15 plastic grocery bags.  Clerks at the stores, often times, put one or two things in a bag which means you take home a lot of plastic bags.  It takes years for one plastic bag to decompose in a land fill so we could stop this cycle of waste by using the “green” bags.  It is difficult to reduce the fuel consumed while I live at home because I have drive to work, but when I am at school, I can make a concerted effort to walk or ride my bike more.  This will accomplish two things: one I get more exercise, and also I will be reducing the amount of fuel consumed and emissions in the air.