Ecological Footprint - End Results

I'll admit I was a little nervous that my footprint wasn't going to change at all, but WOW, what a difference! I know, I know, there are many caveats and potential misinterpretations in this quiz, and honestly I think that's where a lot of my reduction came from, but also from the number of small tweaks that I've been working hard to maintain all quarter!

New vs. Old

2.37 Earths...obviously not a great thing to think about, but a far cry from 3.78. I'm especially happy about this because it's much closer to what my footprint was the very first time I took this quiz when I was about sixteen. Retaking the quiz, however, I did a number of things differently. For example, since taking the quiz the first time, I found out the actual square footage of my home, which is much smaller than my original "guesstimate". I also reduced the number of miles I fly each year after calculating the distance from Seattle to places like Durango, Co, or Sun Valley, Id, two places where I fly most often. These small tweaks and more probably made at least as much of a difference as the actual goals I set, but at least I'm more informed about the reality of my footprint now, and Im happy that the more accurate one is lower than the guesstimate.

 Almost every category went down...except for food

This was confusing for me. I feel like a lot of what I did to enhance my goals was food-related, so why did it go up?! I've almost completely converted my grocery shopping to to Co-Op, I no longer skimp on expensive organic foods and buy the cheap Fred Meyer brand instead, and I've been trying to avoid produce that isn't in season, like berries and tomatoes, and focusing on winter crops. I guess I shouldn't be too upset because in the grand scheme of things I'm still doing better, I just can't figure out what I did differently to get these strange results. I'd say i've definitely been successful in my food goal; with all the habits I've changed shopping at huge supermarkets seems unappealing and a last resort to me now, and I know I'll continue that.

The corrections I made in transportation and housing are clearly visible. While I did cut out a few short car trips here and there, overall I was least successful at this goal. I'm still just as time-challenged as ever, so I still drive to work pretty much every day. I'm not giving up though; Spring is coming and I'll feel progressively guiltier about driving around in all that sunshine when I could be riding my bike.

 Then and Now, hardly a difference

The "biome" chart has the least impact on me; it doesn't give you a lot of context, and even though I've changed a lot about my footprint, it's barely noticeable on this graph. My last goal, purchasing a power strip to turn off electronics when not it use, was the easiest one of all. Within a week of setting this goal it was already a habit. I didn't even buy the power strip; I just started unplugging my lamps instead of switching them off (it does the same thing, right?), and doing the same with my laptop charger. Once I consciously thought about doing it each and every time, I quickly lost the need to think about it at all. This is an easy goal to keep up and I will absolutely do so.

There are a few other things outside of my set goals that I've done as well. For example, I bought a folding clothes drying rack, which I now use to dry most of my laundry on instead of using a dryer. I badgered my family about using my Seafood Watch guide to buy sustainably-sourced seafood, and, though I haven't really gotten the chance to put it into practice yet, I made another personal goal to stop buying into "fast fashion" as often as I do. I know the numbers from the footprint quiz may not be totally accurate, but it's still interesting, and encouraging, to see what a few small changes can do.

Current Event - Idling

Unlike switching out lightbulbs and carrying a reusable water bottle, idling cars is a relatively new sustainability venture for me. I suppose this is because I really don't drive much compared to a lot of people; in high school I walked and rode my bike everywhere, and now as a college student I only recently started driving more when I actually got my first car. It's opened my eyes to a couple of things. First, how easy it is to become dependent on; I've talked about this in my footprint posts, but once you know the convenience of a vehicle is there, it's really hard not to take advantage of. The other thing I've become more aware of is idling. This outdated concept has become one of my biggest pet peeves in the past year, and more than once I've been that obnoxious neighbor poking my head out the door to tell people to shut off their engines.

I began to ask some of the car intellectuals in my life about idling, what it does, why we do it, if it's even necessary etc., and each one of them told me the same thing: it's NOT necessary. I even noticed once while crossing the Canada-U. S. border all of the signs that say "B.C. is Idle-free". It's actaully illegal to idle your car at the Canada border, how cool is that? A better question: why don't we have a law like that? Then I found yet another amazing infographic from Sustainable America, which really lays out why idling is such a silly thing.

FACTS

• Idling wastes gas
• Wasted gas = wasted money
• Running cars unnecessarily emits harmful pollutants into the air
• Most cars these days have no reason to be idle

There are a number of old myths about idling that lead people to believe its a good thing. It warms up your car, your car will run better if its sits for a few minutes, etc., but these concepts are no longer relevant to cars made in the last 20-30 years or so. Newer cars are now so efficient to start that idling for ten seconds uses more gas than turning off and restarting your car. TEN SECONDS. Since learning all this I have become a total idle-policer, but I admit there are times when I do let my engine run. My car is a senior citizen in vehicle-years, so unless I want to endanger everyone on the road when I drive, I have to let it defrost and defog for several minutes sometimes. But I am taking the pledge (and getting the sticker) available on Sustainable America's website; I've cut way down on letting my car idle in places like driveways and drive-thrus. I think if people realized that it's not actually better for your engine to let it "warm up", and that all they are accomplishing is wasting gas, they might start to question this habit too.

Current Event - WWU's Recycle Center

Yay Recycling! With permission from my Professor, I've decided to write a current event about my job at Western Washington University's A.S. Recycle Center. I've been working at the Recycle Center for about a year and a half, starting out as a general laborer and now working as Staff Manager. It's a great job because of the awesome work environment, but also because every day I'm there I'm doing something that aligns with my personal and professional values. While a lot of people recognize me as "that girl who drives the big trucks around campus", a lot of Western students know very little, or nothing at all, about WWU's recycling program.

The Recycle Center was founded in 1971 by a small group of Huxley students and staff members, one of the first recycling programs in the country. It was instrumental in launching Western as one of the most environmental campuses in the nation, and continues to do so today. A few years after it started the university incorporated in into a full time program under the A.S. umbrella, and we've grown ever since.

So what do we do? All those blue barrels you see on campus belong to the R.C.; our workers collect about 650 of them each week and replace them with empty ones. At our facility we hand-sort all of Western's recycling; from mixed paper to glass to plastic, we even take batteries, furniture, and electronics. Everything is broken down into it's component parts so that it can be most efficiently recycled and also most valuably recycled. Because we hand-sort everything, Western recycling (and in fact Bellingham in general), is worth a good deal more than what you would find in Seattle or most other cities. One of the things I love most about the Recycle Center is that not only do we recycle way more than most universities, we do it more cost-efficiently than just about all of them. Our barrels are reused from dairy farms in nearby Lynden; instead of going into a landfill they fuel our entire operation.

I love working for the Recycle Center because you can see the positive impacts before your very eyes. I'm not just being told that Western recycles, I'm seeing 4,000 pounds of proof every day I'm there. Also, the knowledge that, without us, Western would literally collapse is pretty gratifying as well. Before I started working at the Recycle Center I didn't pay much attention to all those blue barrels, but now I know how much the school's students and staff really do depend on us, whether they realize it or not.