“You can see my footprint from space,” said Mister X, who refused to let us use his real name. Mister X, a real Concordia student whose total footprint peaked at 22.7 – which translates into 13.4 planets needed to sustain us all – won’t be giving an interview anytime soon. Nor will nine other people who took the quiz and learned that King Kong has a smaller footprint.
What their footprints tell them is that they need to keep track of the amount of resources they use. Everyone knows the environment needs to be dealt with, but not everyone cares.
“Even if you have a large footprint there are many things we can do to reduce it,” said Catherine Moore, a professor at Concordia’s geography department. “We need to recondition our thinking to understand why we should change.”
Why not try public transport? When rush hour peaks, the bus or metro is often a faster way to get around. Why would anyone want to sit in their car alone for over an hour on the highway while their car moves at 2 km/h? Perhaps it would be better to bike as often as possible before winter arrives.
Or look at your living space, which is the area you use most. Chances are you aren’t selling and won’t move anytime soon, but you can start by insulating your living space with environment-friendly products and by maintaining a steady comfortable temperature during the winter.
In other words, we all need to find a way to neutralize the negative impacts that give us a deep footprint.
The footprint quiz is also suggests that many of us recycle, but there is more we can do even with recycling.
Recycling is one of the greatest environmental success stories of the late 20th century. It diverted 79 million tons of material away from landfills and incinerators in 2005, up from 34 million tons in 1990. By 2005, almost 9,000 curbside collection programs served roughly half of the North American population. Curbside programs, along with drop-off and buy-back centers, resulted in a diversion of about 32 per cent of solid waste in 2005.
“The materials we put out on the curb are still waste,” Moore said. “The less we put in the garbage and in the recycling box each week means that we are using our resources more efficiently.”
Recycling turns materials that would otherwise become waste into valuable resources. It also generates a host of environmental, financial and social benefits. Materials like glass, metal, plastics and paper are collected and sent to facilities that can process them into new material for products.
“Buying items in bulk. cuts down on the amount of garbage and the amount of recycling we put out at the curb,” Moore said.
This means not only buying in bulk, but reusing water bottles, seeking products and packaging that are non-toxic and can be reused, and purchasing products and goods that last a long time.
Many people who take the ecological footprint quiz already know how to recycle. Most of today’s university students grew up learning the three “Rs”, and in many households and companies the blue box recycling program has become a given.
The next step would be to consider waste prevention, or “source reduction”, by consuming less and throwing away less. It would demand the purchase of durable, long-lasting goods, seeking products and packaging that are as free of toxins as possible and redesigning products to use fewer raw materials in production. “Source reduction” also includes using a product that would have a longer life and could be used again after its original use.
If your footprint can be seen from space, then you may need to change how you live and travel, continue recycling and think more about source reduction.
Next Week: Thomas Homer-Dixon’s new book, The Upside of Down.
Marsha Beck, 33, is a receptionist and mother of one. She took the footprint quiz this week.
Total footprint: 1.9 acres.
If we all lived like Marsha we would need just one planet to sustain us all.
“I’m a little surprised with that score because I thought I needed to do more,” she said. “I practice ecological sense and I am a vegan but I always thought I could do more.”
Marsha doesn’t drive a car, takes the bus to work everyday, and hasn’t bought much in the way of clothes for the last ten years.
“I keep things clean and store clothes properly,” she said. “My daughter has grown up knowing about the environment and especially about the three “Rs”.
Marsha lives in a small house and is proud to say that on garbage day she sometimes has nothing to put out by the curb. “I put the recycling box out once a month instead of once a week.”
She hasn’t flown in 20 years because her family lives in Montreal. She vacations in Mount Laurier every year and takes the bus to get there.
The average footprint suggested for all of us is 1.8 acres. We salute you, Marsha.
