Students from around the world calculated their class mean and standard deviations for their footprints and posted them on our world map.
Do you see differences across the globe? If so, why do you think those differences exist?
Did you use the calculator to try to reduce your footprint down to the average from a citizen of another country? What changes would you have to make to lower your footprint in this way? Are you going to try and take some of these actions in your daily life?
Student Footprints >
Recycling in cities
A big way to reduce our carbon footprints is recycling. Unfortunately, many cities do not have very well set up recycling programs. Ways to encourage recycling is by setting up recycling trucks in every neighborhood to pick up recycle-able goods. Another incentive that would make people want to recycle is offering discounted goods or coupons if they are active recyclers. Many states in the North have started offering incentives like this to create a greener community
Recycling is a great and efficient way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) “Americans recovered 34% of waste generated in 2009.” This nationwide recycling “reduced CO2 emissions in a mass equal to removing 33 million passenger vehicles from the roads.” Although recycling has increased, there are more efforts to be made. Recycling bins are not always available, whereas trash cans can be found almost anywhere. By increasing the number of recycling bins, we can increase the amount of recycling. Even within schools, ways to recycle can be limited. Introducing the action of recycling at an early age will encourage this beneficial behavior to carry on throughout the rest of their lives.
Source: http://blog.bigbelly.com/14-ways-to-imp … ling-rates