Personal Consumption Journal - Essay Example

Personal consumption journal According to Wackernagel and Rees (1996), the perception of ecological footprints of the each individual is that, each of us has real areas of the Earths surface committed to our consumption of water and food, our use of the land surface, buildings, roads and garbage dumps which are adequate in terms of being able to reuse the carbon that is emitted by our bodies. The calculated and cumulative sums of these are akin to what establishes our ecological footprint. The quantity one consumes in the course of a year requires some or all of an an item which might be designated by an orange tree, for instance,for only to one person. The products we use annually require some part of the world to be dedicated to our personal consumption. (Palmer,1998) Part One: Ecological footprint After I did the ecological footprint assessment, I ended up with seven earths and 31.2 acres. If everyone lived like me right currently. The earth would not be in decent form. The results have influenced me to change my daily habits, and be more conservative in my activities. At the moment am thinking of what my activities would do to the environs. Currently I am making certain that I recycle all that can be recycled and making certain that I turn off the lights in my house before leaving the room. I have never appreciated how some tiny activities affect the earth so significantly Global ecological footprint estimate that America uses more of the earth ecological footprint than the population itself, America makes up five percent of the earth inhabitants, however its use twenty percent of the earths energy and produces forty percent of the waste.Footprint results estimate that one American uses as much more energy more than six Mexicans, fourteen Chinese, thirty one Indians, and one hundred and eight Bangladesh citizens. Footprint assessment included the parts below the house and the driveway, while for others it might be the portion of the communal area below an apartment building or the parking space lots. In addition, we share part of the earthly city paths, motorway, business premises and communal houses. Part two: Garbage journal Every living being basically produces waste and leaves physical evidence of their presence. However human beings are unique in the production of products and consumption, human presence on earth in big numbers can have major effects on the environment. From my observation our family releases four garbage bags per week. This amount of garbage is surprisingly little compared to other people who release at least seven to ten garbage bags every week. Of the trash thrown away at least fifty percent can be recycle example, newspapers, fine paper, aluminum cans, pizza boxes, glass and plastic containers, cardboard and other materials. In our household we try and reduce the amount of waste generated in the house by buying in bulk, refusing junk mail or flyers deposited in our mailbox, using reusable containers for storage, and using natural cleaners as opposed to hazardous materials for household cleaning. On average the refuse produced in our household is similar to trash produced by other American families. During the week I noted a pattern of what our household threw away, old newspaper are thrown away after a week, recyclable containers such as plastic, aluminium container were thrown away instead of being recycled. At present I am making certain that I recycle all that can be recycled and making certain that I turn off the lights in my house before leaving the room. I have never before appreciated how some tiny activities affect the earth so significantly Part three: Water consumption Water in our household is much used in large amounts inside their house. On average, with a family of five we consume at least five hundred gallons of water each day, and most of the water is used indoors. The toilets use approximately 3.6 and 8 gallons of water per every use. The bathroom taps normally use at least two gallons of water per minute. Mostly when brushing teeth and shaving users do not turn off the water. This increases water consumption every person using more at least two hundred gallons of water per month. Some activities that can be adopted to save water include; using efficiency washing machines that can preserve very large amounts of water. Old-fashioned washing machine use at least twenty seven to fifty four gallons of water per every wash load. The new water saving models use at least less than twenty seven gallons per every wash load. Washing the dishes with a running tap uses more than twenty gallons of water, filling the sink and shutting water save more than ten gallons. Choice of diet had an effect on how many gallons of water were to be used. Fear of disease associated water borne diseases such as gastrointestinal disease affected water consumption behavior. Dirty water remains an important cause of both endemic and epidemic gastrointestinal disease. Plastic container thrown out are mainly water containers (Palmer 2). Plastic container poses a garbage disposal challenge. Water contained in these bottles is not much safer than the tap water, thus tap water is bottled water. Part four: food I really do not know where our food comes from, if we buy from the local farmer and local farm markets we will be reducing the food print., receiving fresh and quality food as well as promoting local farmers businesses, by buying from the locals saves food spending. I do not know how the food we consume is regulated. By not knowing how my the food we consume is processed has made me change the perspective of how I eat, example by buying and eating local grown food at least two within radius of two hundred meters from our household and eating unpackaged food. I changed my food perspectives especially those that are packaged due to lack of information on how the packaged food is regulated. Eating non nutritional food from fast food restaurants such as burgers and pizza emerged as some eating habit that has developed over the last year. Eating perception on packaged food facilitated new behavior such as eating more fruits and vegetables and less red meat. Consumption of meat is bad for heath human and also bad for the environment. Consuming a small quantity meat can decrease probabilities of emerging long-lasting medical situations such as certain cancer types heart problems, diabetes and other diseases. Processed and packed meat from industrial is extremely energy concentrated, thus necessitating the use of a lot of water and about forty energy calories for every eatable calorie. Our households eating habits were similar to those of an average American Work Cited Palmer, A. R. Pete. "Electronic green journal." Evaluating Ecological Footprints (1998): 2-10. Read More