What is a Carbon Footprint?
Before you begin making lifestyle changes to become more sustainable, it is important to understand your carbon footprint and the role it plays in our world. A person’s carbon footprint is all of the net carbon emissions that result from their daily activities. Nearly all human activities, driving a vehicle, heating your home, eating certain foods, results in some sort of carbon emissions. There are several tools which can calculate your carbon footprint, check out Carbon Calculator to get started. According to COTAP, measuring your carbon footprint can help you plan for improvements in the future. You may find it helpful to figure out your own footprint or it might just overwhelm you. Either way, by shifting you focus to the simple switch it is easy to slowly, sustainably become more sustainable. COTAP also provides a list of way to reduce your footprint. They provide a lot of details and are great to check out once you are ready to make bigger changes in your lifestyle.
“A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions that come from the production, use and end-of-life of a product or service.”
Albeck-Ripka from The New York Times
Reduce your Carbon Footprint by using these quick tips:
- Make one less trip a week – Plan ahead a little bit more and try to reduce one trip next week
- Keep a reusable bag in your car at all times — I’d always forget to grab my bag on the way out of the door. Keeping one in the car helps.
- Ditch the single use water bottles, time to buy a nice reusable (glass bottle gets you bonus points!) — In 2017, we used 1 Million plastic bottles per minute (Nace, 2017). The plastic used in these bottles takes 400 years to naturally decompose… Moving to a reusable bottom is an easy fix!
- Glass food storage containers – Easy to clean, keeps food fresh longer.
- Switch to non-plastic milk at least once a month – purchasing a smaller cardboard container can limit wasted milk, they also have longer expiration periods
- Skip the plasticware on takeout – take this a step further and keep a set of silverware in your car for any impromptu picnics
- Turn off sink when brushing teeth – Just by turning off the tap while you brush your teeth in the morning and before bedtime, you can save up to 8 gallons of water!
- Turn off the lights and unplug devices – Unplugging devices could save your up to $100 to $200 a year, per Direct Energy.
- Plant some shrubs around your house or trees on the property – plants and trees serve as natures air filters, taking in carbon dioxide and putting out oxygen.
Environmental issues are daunting, there’s no doubt about it. It’s easy to feel helpless when it comes to this sort of thing. You may have even experienced negative reactions from people to try to shame you for not doing enough. If we let others try to guilt us into making sustainable life choices, they will never stick. Take your time, figure out what is right for you and your situation. Slowly make the switch. Over time, your switch will become sustainable and you’ll be ready and eager to make another!
Reference:
Albeck-Ripka, Livia (n.d.). How to reduce your carbon footprint. The New York Times. Retrieved on January 25, 2020 from https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-reduce-your-carbon-footprint.
Nace, Trevor (2017, July 26). We’re now at a million plastic bottles per minute – 91% of which are not recycled. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2017/07/26/million-plastic-bottles-minute-91-not-recycled/?sh=3ccf2bdf292c