My Final Thoughts

I will be honest, the hard part of this assignment for me was not doing my best to reduce my eco footprint, it was not even saving water, using less electricity and gas, buying eco-friendly products or using public transport. No it was not any of these, it was in fact reporting the changes I have made over the 3 months on my blog. It has taken me a long time to get here and as I look back on my first posts I am happy with my achievements throughout this assignment.

I have managed to reduce consumption of gas, electricity and water and maintained a reasonable amount of waste leaving the home.

I would like to point out that I have always been pretty conscious of how much water I use so the reduction was not huge however I have started to recycle the dishwater to use on the plants outside which I think is great!


The small changes in the bills I would say has a small part to do with being extra aware of how often electrical and gas appliances are used but I also believe the weather has played a part too. I have not had the heater on for a while so that has definately made a difference.


I have also been driving my car much less and as a result I have taken in more of what my local area has to offer! (Mind you public transport has made me loose a few hairs when trains are cancelled and I am running late for uni!)


Overall I have enjoyed this assignment and look forward to maintaining the practices I have put into place. 6/ 16 has gone GREEN and I plan to keep it that way!!

TIME TO REVEAL MY CURRENT ECO FOOTPRINT!

The time has come to see if I have been able to reduce my Eco -footprint over the duration of this assignment.

My initial Ecological Footprint according to the EPA website:

If everyone lived like me, we would need 2.6 Planet Earths to provide enough resource!

Food makes up 46% of my ecological footprint (I eat a lot of meat).

And to support my lifestyle, it takes 4.7 global hectares of the Earth's productive area.

Current Ecological Footprint

If everyone lived like me, we would need 2 Planet Earths to provide enough resource!  A reduction of .6 Planet Earths!

Food makes up 48% of my ecological footprint. I must admit I am surprised about this. I thought I had changed my diet enough to at least make a bit of difference here in a good way, instead the results show an increase of 2%. Maybe I did not accurately record my food breakdown in the initial footprint?

Goods 9%

Services 28%

Shelter 11%

Mobility 3%

And to support my lifestyle, it takes 3.5 global hectares of the Earth's productive area.

ELECTRICITY - ORIGIN

To come

GAS - ORIGIN

Account period: 27-8-2010 to 27-10-2010: 61 days

Usage: 2070MJ's

Average Daily usage: 33.9 MJ (2 people)

Amount: $46.73

Average cost per day: $ 0.92

Greenhouse gas emissions: 0.11 tonnes C02

WATER:

Unfortunately I have forgotten to bring my diary back to the farm so that I can type the water usage for most weeks in the blog. I know from memory that both Ben and I use  below 155litres per day. I believe this has a lot to do with the following: we do not have a washing machine, we have a flushing policy which you would have already read about, we only fill the bucket in the kitchen sink half way when doing the dishes and we try (and succeed most of the time) to only have 3 minute showers.  I will have to check my diary again to be positively sure but I think we only managed to reduce our water usage by a few litres as we have always been water wise even before this assignment.

LAST RUBBISH WEIGH IN.....

I have found it hard to reduce the household waste however I am much more aware of what I throw in the bin and what I can recycle. For almost three months the waste (for two people) has stayed at about the same weight each week, general waste at approximately 3kgs and recycling at approximately 2- 2.5kgs. I personally do not think this is too bad for two people however I know it is possible to go better and when I do I will post the results even after the assignment is finished!

Final weeks rubbish

Weight of general waste: approx 3 kg

Weight of recyling: appro 2.5 kg

Recycling!