Many students using our footprint calculator said that they could not pledge to reduce their home footprints because they were not making the decisions for the household. Here is your chance to design your own sustainable virtual household!
If you had your own home, what would you do to make it more energy efficient? Where would you get your electricity from? Where would your house be? Would you live near to your school or work or local transit options? Where would you get your food from?
MY Family Footprint >
How I Would Change my House to Lower Carbon Usage
I think my carbon footprint is heavily impacted by how often my parents use some appliances and certain rules that they have for the house. If I ran my house, I would make certain rules for my family to follow to reduce our carbon usage. Sometimes people can become blinded to the amount of energy, water, etc. that they are using. Firstly, I think we keep our air conditioning at too high of a temperature. My mom likes to have the house at a very low temperature because she gets hot easily. I would make a rule that the temperature can only be below 75 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour each day. This would reduce the amount of energy we use. Secondly, I would set a rule that we MUST recycle every paper, plastic, and aluminum item that we use. Recycling will help reduce the amount of trash in landfills which releases many greenhouse gases. It also takes less energy to recycle items than to make them from raw materials. Thirdly, I would make a rule that says every time someone leaves a room they must turn all the lights off. Leaving lights on uses lots of energy and getting that energy releases immense amounts of greenhouse gases, harming the environment and causing Earth to warm.
SOURCE:
http://www.recycling-guide.org.uk/importance.html