Water Footprint

Out of three categories(indoor, outdoor, and virtual), my largest was virtual. Followed by outdoor and then indoor being barely anything. Below I have the results of my water use, based on www.watercalculator.org.

A day, for just my indoor water use and based on the results from my water footprint, I spend .39 cents. All together, it would cost me $11.30 a day for my indoor, outdoor, and virtual water use. Amounting to about $339 a month! Thankfully, I only pay an average of $30 a month for my water bill; which is about $1 a day. I would love to be spending only .39 cents a day for water, however I will stick my current water bill over $11.30 a day.

Is this financially worth it for me? No. The reason I say that is because I think that the survey was somewhat flawed when it asked if you ate meat or not(with it being my largest amount of calculated water use). My main meat is chicken, and a large portion of my diet consists of chicken and rice. I would assume that chickens do not require as much water as do other animals. But with that aside, I do not find that if I were to change my diet that it would be finacially worth it for me.

If there was an even 300 million people living in the United States, then the amount of water used per day would be 677,400,000,000 billion gallons. Based on the amount of water used  in the United States stated before, people would be spending a total of $3,387,000,000 a day for water.

In good consciousness, I would have to say that it is finacially worth it to TRY to practice water conservation. But what is the goal here? Is there a number that we want to strive for per person usage? It is not like energy where everything could be renewable. As possible as it may be in theory, water renewability in its current state is not an option available to the public right now. I do not know the right answer, however I will say that it would be finacially worth to try to practice water conservation.

As to why it included items that do not use water, it used water in the making of those items. Above where I described my issue with the diet question, plants and animals all require a large amount of water in order to grow/live.

Overall, I was pleased with my water footprint. It was a surprising find that most of my water footprint is from virtual water. There must be a way that the food industry could reduce its water footprint, which would help both the environment and save costs!

In terms of my own ecological footprint, I have been strongly considering biking more often. I do not have my bike with me where I currently live nor would I have room for it, however my wife and I will be moving soon and I hope to bring my bike over to our new place. Maybe with it being available to me, I will ride it to places that I would not need a car to get to.

Carbon Footprint

The calculator itself was very thorough in what it asked for to determine the carbon footprint of my household. It was a little difficult when asked if we could change certain utilities within our home since we live in an apartment and are restricted from changing most things, but in my mind I said yes. Was it accurate? I had to guestimate the transportation portion of the calculator to the best of my abilities, but I believe it is pretty accurate. If anything, the miles traveled per week is wrong.

At work we do not recycle anything other than cardboard(which I am a little surprised with how much we use paper) and that is something that was not on this calculator. The fact that we do not recycle our paper at work nor turn off all of the lights(which we have no control over) would have to be my two things that would make my footprint higher. Two thing that might make my carbon footprint lower would have to be my lightbulbs used within the household and our recent purchase in new blinds. Yes, there was a question that asked about lightbulbs, however most of our lightbulbs are energy efficient already. Also, our purchase in new blinds that block out more sunlight should help reduce the use of our air conditioner.

I do not think that it is possible to meet the challenge of reducing our carbon footprint(USA) by 80%. However, I believe it is possible to reduce it by at least 50%. Assuming there is a time set in place that this challenge is to be met by, with the introduction of newer and less-costly energy-efficient technology(vehicles, appliances, mobile devices, renewable energy, etc.) I can see a future where the U.S. Average carbon footprint could be cut from 33,261 CO2 emissions to 16,630. As for me currently, I do not think I could do that. However, if I were to do that, I would have to give up driving unless absolutely necessary, investing in an energy-efficient household, and taking action at work to recycle paper, light bulbs, and plastics.

Going a little off topic, but if I was not married--to a lovely wife I might add--I would definitely be living in what is known as a tiny home. Maybe about 200 sq. ft. and sitting on a trailer, I would be fine living in such small quarters by myself. It is cost-effective, energy-efficient, sustainable, less maintenance is required, and would allow me to live wherever I wanted to, for the most part.

For my carbon footprint, I am satisfied where it is right now. I am below the national average, and I will start trying to travel to nearby places by foot or bicycle.

Indoor Air

I was very pleased with the results of the Indoor Air Quality Assessment Checklist. Lauren and I do not have any health symptoms both described within the first part of the assessment, nor anything that we could think of that was not listed. The only areas that pointed some concern was section B: Tight Home Syndrome. We live in a small apartment and I have noticed that there is a lot of condensation that builds up around the windows that stimulates mold growth. I am sure it is nothing major, and thankfully we will be moving soon to a newer apartment with updated appliances and ventilation systems, however if we were to stay here longer I imagine I would pose a problem to our health. Also, there has always been a leak in the pipes of the sink ever since we got here. This is a problem that I am sure the owners of the apartment complex are aware of as there is a bucket that sits below the pipe with the leak, but I have to regularly keep an eye on how much it fills and dump/clean it out to prevent any smells or mold growth.

Now that it is spring and rolling into summer, we can now open our windows to provide natural ventilation, but if we ever have to we should invest in a fan or two to give the apartment more adequate air flow between the two rooms of our home.