For my eye opener, I chose to take the ecological footprint quiz. I was somewhat surprised by my results. According to the quiz, if everyone in the world lived the way I do, we would need 4.2 earths and its resources to survive. I think this is a lot but thought it was a somewhat fair assessment for the following reasons.
First, I was not brought up on a family that recycles or uses paper bags at the grocery store. That being said, I was never pushed to recycle until I started to attend school at UMD and living in Duluth. Although it wasn't easy for me to do, I slowly have started to recycle more and more but I know that I should make more of an effort. After moving to Rochester for a short time and realizing that it is NOT a landlord's responsibility to provide recycling, it was a real eye opener for me to see how great Duluth is and how much of an effort the city makes to make our world a better place. I also learned this in my community health class but it wasn't until I moved that I truly realized it.
Also, I thought the assessment was fair because when it asked about my meat consumption, I noticed that my family and I do a pretty good job at eating locally and not consuming too much. It is very rare for me to eat meat several times during the week. When it comes to my family, we purchase a cow from a local county fair for it to be butchered and processed. We also have a lot of gardens in the area so we eat a lot of our other food locally as well.
This quiz brought up several aspects of my overall resource consumption that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of. I showed me ways that I can improve and showed me other ways that I am doing my part. I thought it was a great experience.
Now that you've learned about and started recycling, have you tried to get the rest of your family to do it?
ReplyDeleteYes, I've made an attempt. We have always recycled our aluminum cans. Since I'm from a very small town, recycling tends to be a big hassle but it's something I will keep working on with them.
ReplyDeleteSam,
ReplyDeleteI am from an extremly small town as well and recycling doesnt even exist within our sanitation department, you have to take it upon yourself do recycle. It is quite frustrating but you just have to keep trying to get people to do it.
Good for you for learning how to recycle! It has always been a part of my life since I was little. My dad used to take me to get paid for all the cans we crushed/recycled. Granted it wasn't alot (probably like 10cents a can) but it was something that we looked forward to!
ReplyDeleteI had similar results with a need for about 4 planet earths to support my lifestyle if everyone lived like I did. I think it is interesting to see how things change from generation to generation and that we can influence our parents and grandparents to make an effort. I am glad you are working on this!
ReplyDeleteIt's great that you've started recycling and you're right, we're totally lucky to live in a city with such a great recycling program! At my mom's house in St. Paul they have to be VERY careful not to mix any plastics, paper or alluminum.
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