My ecological footprint in comparison to others:
My footprint: 5.96
Kalayla’s footprint: 8.59
Anita’s footprint: 9.15
Xylia’s footprint: 11.05
10 actions that are increasing my footprint:
- I take too long in the shower
- I sometimes forget to turn off the lights when I leave a room
- I more often than not drive to school rather than walking or biking
- I don’t usually eat certified organic foods
- I get more brand new clothing than I get second-hand clothing
- Sometimes I get snacks that are individually packaged
- Sometimes I use single use plastic or packaging like straws, bags, and pens
- I get full and can’t finish my meal so it gets wasted
- I sometimes take baths instead of showers
- I don’t wear a lot of the clothes I have on a daily/weekly basis
Five actions to reduce my footprint:
- Trying to walk or bus to school instead of driving.
- Making sure that I don’t clothes that I won’t wear.
- Getting more thrifted, second-hand, or hand-me-downs instead of buying them new.
- Putting on a sweater instead of turning up the heat when it gets cold.
- taking shorter showers.
How I can achieve these goals:
- For goal number one I can try to leave a bit earlier to get to school by walking, or we can take the electric car instead of the gasoline one. I can also bus if I have to, but I need to make sure i always have my bus pass.
- To achieve this goal number two, I just need to really think before I buy anything. I need to ask myself if I really need this? Am I actually going to wear it more than once?
- Goal number three may be a bit harder at the moment because a lot of thrift stores are closed/restricted right now, and when they are open they are very crowded which makes it hard to maintain social distancing. However, I could possibly use some hand me downs from older friends or family.
- This goal I think is the easiest to achieve, because all I really need to do is go get a sweater for when it gets cold. If I wanted to make it even easier for myself I could even lay out a designated sweater or hoodie to use when it gets cold, just so I don’t forget.
- I think goal number five is the hardest because it takes me a long time to wash my hair, so it is hard to reduce that time. What I think I could do is to turn off the water when I’m not using it, so I’m not using as much even if I take a long time.
Some changes I made (easy and hard):
Most of the changes that I made were easy to do, so I didn’t really have much trouble with them. However I did have a problem with a few. It turns out it was very challenging to try and walk to school because I have a sibling that goes to the school, and I had to make sure that I was accommodating her needs as well as my own. For example, I would try to walk to school, and she would be late or vice versa, one of us had an injury, it was bad weather, we had too much extra stuff to carry. Whatever it was, there was usually some sort of cause. When this happened I just had the idea of taking the electric car, because it is better for the environment. This is what I ended up doing most days.
Obstacles I faced:
There was only one big obstacle that I faced, and it was the fact that I have a lot of people in my family, so there were a lot of disagreements, and needs. For instance, sometimes my younger siblings would have the electric car and we couldn’t walk so we had to take the gas car. Or when I tried to not turn up the heating, but it ended up getting turned up anyway because everyone else was too cold as well. We mostly managed to agree though.
Steps I plan to take in the future:
I think the most major thing that I can do in the future is to be more generally aware of the things I’m doing. I can be more aware of what I’m buying, eating, using, etc. I think this will help remind myself to be more conscious about these things, and to remind myself to try and keep my ecological footprint as low as possible.