Ecological Footprint: An Exercise in Estimation

How did I make my estimates? I walked around for a week, starting on Thursday, October 12^th and finishing on Wednesday, October 18^th carrying my daily usage sheets and marking off every time I used the restroom, every time I washed my hands, turned on my computer, the stereo, the TV. At home, at least, I was very diligent about writing down my usage as soon as I finished something. At work, on the other hand, I was unable to take the time to record my usage immediately, as I had too much work to do already. I came home at the end of each work and school day and tried to estimate the number of times I went to the bathroom, the minutes I spent washing my hands, etc.; I fear that because I cannot count the numerous light bulbs and electronic devices that I use at work, that a large part of my actual resource usage is absent from my figures.

Therefore, my estimates are really more a picture of my use of energy at home; work usage is largely excluded. Although I tried to keep up with my records to the best of my abilities, I know that this is over all a very rough estimate of the amount of resources that I use. I couldn't find (or didn't have time to find), the wattage ratings for many of the devices that I use on a regular basis, and as such, I found it necessary to continue with the average values that were given on the original audit sheets. I would venture a guess that the true values for the devices in my home would probably fall somewhere near those given, in most cases. I'm really not too concerned about getting an exact picture from this audit, I think the general impression will be the same despite those caveats. Given more time I could really drill down and find the exact values for many, if not all, of my appliances and form a highly accurate snapshot of my resource utilization.

Insights or surprises?

I was somewhat surprised by the large portion of total power usage that heating water consumes. I estimated the duty cycle of my water heater at about ten percent (meaning that it's on ten percent of the time) and found that in one week the energy used was eighty four kilowatts! That's a good forty percent of my total energy use for one week, and I only used around 160 gallons of hot water in that time period. That's 525 watt hours to heat a single gallon of water. I never really carefully considered the impact that using less hot water could have on my energy bill. As well as the amount of pollutants put into the air by the power plants supplying that energy. Although much of our power comes from cleaner sources such as hydroelectric dams, some of it comes from coal and other highly polluting power sources.

I wish that I could more accurately reflect the amount of waste that I generate at work, as well as the amount of electricity I use, but it seems an insurmountable challenge. I wonder if most people would include the power, water, and garbage that they generate at work in an assessment of their own ecological footprint. I would like to include these things, because they are obviously significant, but I don't feel that it's practical to attempt.

I think that I can take away from this a greater appreciation for the impact that I have on the planet, directly and indirectly, and I can see where I can change things to reduce my footprint, mostly in terms of using more efficient appliances and devices, and making sure to turn them off when they are not in use. I can also see that although in terms of waste, my roommates make up the bulk of our output, I carry about an equal portion of the amount of energy that we use, although I'd like to think I'm more careful about how I use things. I try to make it a point to turn off lights, computers, TVs, stereos, the oven, etc. when I am finished using them.