Semester Project #1 Blog #2

I have addressed most of the strategies in my ecological footprint reduction plan, except for #2, having only what I need in my car. For swim I had to shave my head last week so that automatically reduced the number of minutes I stayed in the shower. For the past two weeks, I have been recording the number and length of showers I take and here is a summary of my results:

For the first week, I took 11 showers, ranging from 10-14 minutes each (I have to take a shower after swim to get the chlorine off my skin). If I take the max number of minutes (14) and multiply that by 11, I spent 154 minutes in the shower, or a total of 2.56 hours. I used about 25 gallons of water per shower, or 275 total gallons for the week.

For the second week, when I shaved my head, I took 7 showers, ranging from 5-7 minutes each. At the most, I spent 49 minutes in the shower, or 0.82 hours. Again, I used about 25 gallons of water per shower, so 175 gallons used total. That means (roughly) that by decreasing my shower time by 5-7 minutes, I used 100 less gallons of water, which means a lot of $ saved.

As for the other two points, I have remembered to turn the lights off when I leave the room, and at the end of the night I always turn off the printer or computer if it was left on. I have kept pretty good care of my paintbrushes and other art supplies, but I could save more money by reducing the amount of paint I use.


Questions: 
1) What were the results of your footprint analysis? 
My footprint analysis said that it would take 4.7 earths to sustain the population if everyone lived the lifestyle I do. By carrying out some of the points in my footprint reduction plan, I hope this number goes down and overall that I leave a smaller footprint on the earth. My school is running a book drive in the spring to raise money to buy trees to plant around the school and give back to the environment. Planting a garden or other plants in the spring/summer might be another good way to reduce my footprint.

2) Do you feel these results reflect your lifestyle accurately? Why?
At first, I didn't think the results reflected my lifestyle accurately, because I couldn't comprehend how it would take 4.7 earths to sustain the way I live. Looking back on it though, this number or the concept of it, does make sense. Through the readings and research for this class I have realized just how many resources I use on a daily basis and how much wasted materials I throw away or go unused. I definitely want to reduce this number and make my lifestyle more environmentally friendly.