Looking Back At My Footprint Reduction Goals

On April 14th, I posted a blog where I calculated my footprint on the environment concerning water, slavery, carbon, and ecology.

These were my initial results,

Carbon:

Slavery:

Water:

Ecological:

I now want to look back and see if there are any changes in the statistics.

Carbon: 75 tons of co2/year - down 2 tons/year. This could be due to having stopped driving altogether due to COVID.

Slavery: 31 slaves - equal. I don't know why this didn't change. I can only assume my goals don't affect my slavery count.

Water: Personal 1560 gallons/day and household use of 7802/day - down 200 personal/ 1000 for the family. I believe this drop is due to me eating much less meat combined with taking 5-minute showers.

Ecological: 4.2 Earths - down 0.1 earths. This drop could be a combination of my reduced water and meat consumption. Although I wish the difference was more significant, it's still something I want to work on.

My original goals were to: 

1. Reducing the amount of red meat consumption. Although I am on my way to achieving this goal already, it is still essential to keep this in focus. I only want to consume red meat once a month moving forward. Currently, I am at around once every 1-2 weeks.
2. I am reducing my shower time to 5 minutes or less. Generally, in the morning, I like to spend a long time in the shower, mentally preparing for my day. This is a massive waste of water that should be easy to reduce. I plan to time it from the moment I turn on the tap.
3. Reducing my e-waste. I'm very into tech and sometimes make purchases that I do not 'need.' For this quarter in school, I want not to purchase any more tech products.

Looking back at my goals 

1. I didn't eat red meat for 30 days! This is big news for me, and I'm thrilled that I managed to achieve my goal. It was pretty easy, but I do miss some bacon and eggs. Moving forward, I think I'll try to stick to only eating red meat once a month. I believe this is a realistic goal as we advance because I want to view red meat as a treat or something I only eat on special occasions.
2.  I've gone from taking 10-20 min showers to quick 5 minute showers every time! I believe this, combined with the read meat reduction, significantly impacted my water use!
3. Apart from having to send a few products back, I haven't purchased any tech products. This was relatively easy due to only having 2 months not to buy anything and with supplier issues causing an increase in tech price. Moving forward, I want to be able to limit my tech purchases. I've thought of ones like only buying a new phone every three years/restrict the number of parts that I order for my computer.

Overall, I've enjoyed this project of settings footprint goals, and it's opened my eyes to how unsustainable the average Americans' life is. I want to continue to set goals for myself, and I'm excited to learn more about the differences individuals can make. Honestly, I wish more of this information was taught in schools from an early age, but with the current administration, I don't see that happening anytime soon