ecological footprint
My current ecological foot print is about 7.9 hectares
The average Canadians ecological footprint is 7.25 hectares so mine is not too much higher than the norm, how ever it is higher than average which is not a good thing and I will definitely start trying harder to find ways to make my ecological foot print smaller, since the average is lower than my ecological footprint it is clearly possible to get my ecological foot print lower.
class mates ecological foot prints compared to mine
Jordans foot print 7.6 hectares
Natalies foot print 12.16 hectares
my foot print 7.9 hectares
compared to my class mates footprints mine seemed in the middle of every one else’s it wan’t the highest it wasn’t the lowest, it was clear to me that there are definitely steps i can take to lower my foot print and i can possibly talk to my class mates about how they got there foot prints lower.
https://www.peelregion.ca/planning/bulletins/ecological.pdf
Ten thing I can do to cut down on my eco footprint
- Buy more clothes from thrift stores
- Try to make less garbage
- Try to grow more of my own food
- Try to walk to more stores ( the grocery store is really close to my house so It shouldn’t be hard)
- Use reusable produce bags
- Try to take short showers all the time not just some of the time
- Try to buy products that come in less packaging
- Work on turning off lights when I leave a room
- Give up dairy
- Repair stuff when it breaks instead of throwing it out
5 things I will do ( and there benefits)
1.Plant some seeds I can grow inside ( basil, oregano and other herbs)
If you plant and grow your own food ( to name a few benefits there are many) there is much less pollution as food doesn’t need to be shipped to you if it’s already in your backyard
2.Go to a thrift store to buy some of my clothes/ fix up old clothes I already have that my have holes or tears
Buying clothes second hand means less clothes being made in factories, and factories needing to make less clothes cuts down on pollution as well as making even a single garment can take liters and liters of water so buying second hand clothes cuts down on wasted water as well
3.Use reusable produce bags instead of plastic ones when I go to the grocery store
Plastic bags are one of the biggest polluters and often end up in the ocean so reusable grocery and produce bags is very good for cutting down on pollution. Plastic bags can take hundreds of years to break down so the faster we can cut plastics that end up in the ocean the better
4.Try to take shorter showers
Only about 1% of earths water is safe for humans so using less water when we can, leaves more water for drinking
5.In will work on turning off light when I leave a room
Using less electricity cuts down on the amount of toxins released into ecosystems near power plants, so using less electricity creates less pollution
I choose to change all of these because all of them are either something I’ve noticed myself not doing or not doing very well, for example last year I decided to grow my own food but only grew kale which is something I don’t particularly like to eat so this time I grew a lot of herbs which is something I use in cooking almost every day. I really reflected on things I don’t need ( like unnecessarily long showers) or actions that simply require changing a bad habit( like leaving the lights on when I leave a room.)
Being more eco- friendly journal
day one:
i plan on starting the seeds, they probably won’t have done too much before the project is due seeing as there’s only a week between now and then, also pertaining to the fact I started this a little late, I may not have time to go to the thrift store so I will continue to work on fixing up some clothes ( need some altering) I just happened to pick up in a thrift store a few weeks ago ( I don’t usually do that so it’s a happy coincidence). at first it was hard to remember to turn off light every time I leave a room, I’m so used to leaving them on, but I think I’ll get the hang of it soon. We went shopping today and I used the reusable produce bags, we didn’t have quite enough but they were quite easy to use.
Day 2:
I didn’t end up planting the seeds yesterday I got very busy with some other stuff and didn’t have enough time so I planted them today. I’m still getting used to remembering to turn off lights. I‘m still trying to figure out how to alter the clothes I got from the thrift store ( I’m pretty knew to sewing) but I’ll figure it out soon. I going to shower tonight ( I won’t be able to edit this again today afterwards) I plan to keep the shower between 2-5 minutes.
Day 3:
The seeds seem to be doing well after I planted them but I wont know until they sprout. The clothes I got from the thrift store didn’t need as many alterations as I thought that they would, but I do have some old clothes that have holes in them I was going to throw out but I will ( try) to fix the holes, we also went to the store to pick up a few things and used our reusable bags.
Day 4:
I didn’t do a lot today but I did make sure to turnout light once I left a room, I continued to water my plants and put them in a warm bright place I fixed all the clothes I could find that had holes in them, I definitely need to work on my sewing skills so I will definitely continue to work on fixing clothes when the rip even after this project is over.
Day 5:
My plants still seem to be doing well they still haven’t sprouted but it’s supposed to take 9 days for them to sprout so I’m not too concerned. I have been keeping shower times super short 2-3 minutes, the hardest thing to do remains remembering to turn off lights every time I leave a room I guess I got in the habit of not doing it and it is quite hard to break habit
Day 6:
today was pretty uneventful as far as times when i can choose a more eco friendly option, I’m still watering my plant seeds daily, I’m getting more used to turning out lights as I leave a room. I’m still trying to use reusable bags for everything, but I don’t have very many reusable bags so I my try and make more to practice sewing skills.
Day 7:
today is the last day of eco- foot print changes i will be recording i will definitely continue with the changes i’ve made over the last week as i’ve really enjoyed doing all these little things that can help the environment i a big way
Probably the easiest change to make was to grow some of my own food I already had a planter so planting some seeds in it and watering them daily really wasn’t that hard to remember ( especially because at first the planter was on my kitchen table). Me and my mom have also gardened in the past although this was my first time growing herbs I used the skills I’d already learned with the flowers and stuff that I’d grown in the past.
The hardest change to make definitely was to remember to turn off lights when I leave a room, I just couldn’t get it to stick in my mind that I had to turn off lights every time I left the room. I never made the habit of turning off lights when you leave the room when I was a little kid, and it was hard to change a bad habit I had, had for so long with many of the other things I decided to change in my life to help the environment they either didn’t occur as often as leaving a room or I’d done it before ( like gardening), so that definitely made remembering to turn off lights the hardest.
One of the obstacles I encountered was that I didn’t release I didn’t start making the changes for my eco foot print soon enough so I didn’t have enough time to collect the full two weeks of data, so then I didn’t have as much data as I would have liked to do this write up, the fact that I started to late was definitely the biggest obstacle I faced.
the steps i will continue to take in the future are, i will continue to fix holes in my clothes, i will keep growing my own food( i found that really fun), taking short showers and using reusable shopping and produce bags, i will definitely need to keep working on remembering to turn off lights, the fact that i struggled with it so much only shows to me that it is very important for me to break old bad habits. so in short i will continue to do everything i’ve been doing for the last week i’ve found it relatively easy to change my habits in ways that i think will help the environment lots ( every little thing helps).