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 >
Sea turtles and plastic
Did you know that a single piece of plastic can kill a sea turtle?
A study says that ingesting a single piece of plastic increases a sea turtle's risk of death by 22%. If a sea turtle ingests 14 plastic items the chance od death rises by 50%.
The main victims of plastic are baby and juvenile turtles, because they tend to float on the surface where all the plastic floats. That's a very serious oroblem for the viability of sea turtle populations.
We need to reduce the use of plastic! For example we don't have to use a plastic straw everytime we drink something in a restaurant or fastfood restaurant.
You're really right! We should avoid it when possible. For example, we shouldn't use plastic bags but buy one that is reusable, so that they don't end in the ocean, avoid recycle PET bottles and recycle them every time.
In the sea there are lots of fishes, whales, birds that die due to having ingested too much plastic. There are shocking pictures of their stomachs and I think that if more people saw them, they'll think it twice before throwing plastics in the bin...