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 >
Grocery shopping
My mom brings in her own bags when she goes to hannaford because its better than using the plastic bags they give out.
I agree with this because the plastic bags are really bad for the environment.
I agree with bringing reusable bags than using plastic or paper bags anywhere. A plastic bag can take from 15 to 1,000 years to break down, depending on the environment. In a landfill, kept away from the environment that would help them biodegrade more easily, paper bags don't do much better. Plastic bags don't biodegrade, but they can break down through photodegradation. When photodegradation, decomposition through exposure to light, happens, the bag breaks down into small, toxic particles. With that said, plastic is a huge harm to animals. An estimated one million birds, 100,000 turtles, and countless other sea animals die from each year from ingesting plastic. The animals confuse floating bags and plastic particles for edible sea life such as jellyfish and plankton. Once ingested, the plastic blocks the digestive tract and the animals starve to death. Other animals drown after becoming entangled in plastic waste. Overall, in landfills, paper bags create more than twice as much as the atmospheric waste as plastic ones do, so they're not necessarily a better choice for the environment. One person using reusable bags over their lifetime would remove more than 22,000 plastic bags from the environment.