Eco Fact 8: Ecological Foot Print

A child born in a wealthy country is likely to consume, waste, and pollute more in her/his lifetime than 50 children born in poorer nations. According to the Global Footprint Network, we currently consume more resources per year than our planet can produce in the same timeframe. Their calculations show that it takes the planet 18 months to regenerate everything that we use in a 12-month period.

Today we lead very advanced lives and use materials and energy every day. We travel great distances, eat food from far away, use recreational facilities, wear clothing for different seasons and produce garbage. Do we know what is the ecological footprint we leave on the environment? The more you consume, the larger your footprint will be!

Ecological footprint is impact of human activities measured in terms of the area of biologically productive land and water required to produce the goods consumed and to assimilate the wastes generated. An ecological footprint measures humans' consumption of natural resources against the Earth’s ecological capacity (biocapacity) to regenerate them.

There are several ways to reduce our ecological footprint. The ways to reduce our ecological footprint are:

1.       Reduce the use of the plastic

2.      Switch to Renewable Energy

3.      Reduce your Waste

4.      Use Cleaner Transport

5.      Plant trees