There are many ways to reduce your impact on the environment. Some of the most often cited ways on how to do so include not wasting food, recycling, riding a bicycle, lowering your electricity usage, planting trees, and maybe buying fewer clothes. How effective are these ideas at actually reducing your emissions, though?
Are they really the most effective way to help the environment? In general, the answer to both those questions is absolutely. However, there is a lot more to it than that, so please continue reading.
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As there are many statistics and some calculations later on in this article, there is some information that needs to be clarified first. This article, for the purposes of calculation, will assume a lot of things. Namely, that you live in the average urban home, that you use the average amount of electricity for each appliance, and that you drive the average amount each year, among other things.
This article will also include lots of different statistics about emissions from various sources. For comparison, here is some information that can be used for reference later on in the article. The average American emits 13.8 metric tonnes or 15.2 tons or 30,420 pounds of carbon dioxide each year. The average Canadian emits 14.2 metric tonnes, which comes in at 31,305.6 pounds or 15.65 tons. For each kilowatt-hour of electricity generation, 0.81 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted on average through the burning of fossil fuels in the US. In Canada, only 0.37 pounds of carbon dioxide are emitted to generate each kilowatt.
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A frequently mentioned way to reduce your impact on the environment is to recycle, so this article will talk about that idea first. Recycling does greatly reduce the carbon footprint of the material produced. Recycling a ton of aluminum prevents about 9 tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and recycling a ton of plastic prevents about 2.5 tons.
As of 2018, the average American uses 218 pounds of plastic each year. This means that if you recycled all of it, you would prevent 545 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
This is where we come to our first catch. Only 9% of plastic is ever recycled in the US. This rather squashes the benefits of recycling plastic.
This is why you are also advised to reduce your plastic usage in the first place. This is also generally a good idea. However, you should be careful about what plastic you avoid and when. A 2018 report by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency found that to offset the emissions of a cloth bag and make it more environmentally friendly than a plastic bag, you would have to use it 7,100 times. This means that unless you plan on using a reusable cloth bag for an average of 19 years into the future, you should actually use plastic bags. Please note that this only considers the carbon dioxide emitted by the production of each type of bag and not its environmental impact afterwards. For metal straws, you have to use them over 150 times to offset their production emissions.
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What about paper? The production of paper, on average, produces 942 kilograms of carbon dioxide for each metric ton created. The average US citizen uses more than 700 pounds of paper each year, an amount that happens to be the highest amount per capita worldwide. The carbon footprint of those 700 pounds of paper is about 425.5 pounds of carbon dioxide. Recycling does greatly reduce those emissions, though. Luckily, paper has a much higher recycling rate than plastic, at a rate of 65 to 69%.
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Reducing Electricity Consumption
Another big way to greatly reduce your greenhouse gas emissions is to reduce your electricity consumption. The average home in the US and Canada uses 10,500 and 11,135 kilowatts of electricity each year, respectively. In the US, because each kilowatt of energy generated emits 0.81 pounds of carbon dioxide, that means your home produces 8,500 pounds of carbon dioxide each year as a result of electricity consumption. In Canada, an average of 4,120 pounds of carbon dioxide would be released from yearly consumption.
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Now that you know how much carbon dioxide is emitted, what is using up that energy? The largest consumer of electricity in your home is air conditioning, which uses 16.9% of your electricity. Next up is heating at 14.8%, water heating at 13.7%, lighting at 10.3%, refrigerators and TVs both at 7%, and clothes dryers at 4.5%.
Various other appliances make up the rest. For Canadians, 64% of the energy consumed in a home is used for heating. Considering that it is hard to dramatically lower your air conditioning electricity consumption, the next most effective way to lower your electricity consumption is to turn down the thermostat temperature and simply put on extra layers when it gets cold inside. However, you can also reduce your electricity consumption through a variety of other ways, such as using less hot water or turning off lights if they are not being used. If the average American reduces electricity consumption by 1,554 kilowatts, 1,258 pounds of carbon dioxide would be prevented from entering the atmosphere as a result. In comparison, if a Canadian were to reduce individual electricity consumption by a similar amount, 575 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions would be prevented.
On the other hand, to totally remove electricity consumption emissions, you can always go for the option of putting solar panels on your roof if you live in a suitable location, running completely on renewable energy. I have gone over the environmental impact of solar panels in another article, but if you do get them, they will eventually make back the money spent to install them and offset their own production emissions.
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Another appliance that uses a fair amount of electricity is your computer. On average, if a computer is on for 8 hours each day for an entire year, it will use up 146 kilowatt hours of electricity. This translates to 118.26 pounds of carbon dioxide each year for an American resident.
An iPhone, on the other hand, uses 1 kilowatt hour of electricity each year. A standard email generates 0.0088 pounds or 4 grams of carbon dioxide, while one with a large attachment goes up to 50 grams. Luckily, there are quite a few ways to greatly reduce all of those emissions.
Reducing Food Emissions
Another option to reduce your carbon footprint from food could be to change parts of your diet. Beef produced from a beef herd produces 99.48 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram of meat produced. Lamb produces 39.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilogram, beef from a dairy herd produces 33.3 kilograms, and poultry produces 9.87 kilograms. Non-meat foods generally emit quite a bit less per kilogram, except for cheese, which produces 23.88 kilograms of carbon dioxide per kilogram produced.
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As you can see, beef produces the largest amount of carbon dioxide. Even beef from a dairy herd still produces a substantial amount of carbon dioxide. Assuming that you eat beef, even choosing the most environmentally friendly option available still has a considerable impact on the environment when compared to most non-meat foods.
The average American eats 56.2 pounds of beef each year, with Canadians consuming a bit higher at 57.5 pounds or 26.1 kilograms. If all that beef came from a beef herd, that consumption would produce on average 5,596.6 pounds or 2,538.7 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent gases. If all that beef came from a dairy herd, it would produce on average 1,872 pounds or 849.15 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent gases. For either type, that is a lot of emissions.
However, does this mean that you should stop eating beef? Not necessarily. There are a lot of solutions out there that can dramatically reduce the environmental impact of cows and farm animals in general.
For example, the red seaweed called Asparagopsis taxiformis, when fed to cows, can lower their methane emissions. To further reduce emissions, some beef producers in Colombia have managed to integrate trees and grasses onto their pasturelands, which then enabled them to raise four times as many cows per acre on their land. In the end, the question of whether you should stop eating beef or not depends on how willing you are to do so and how environmentally friendly the beef you consume is.
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Reducing Transportation Emissions
Now, what about your family car? The typical passenger vehicle emits around 10,151 pounds of carbon dioxide each year. This is rather a lot and overtakes all of your emissions from electricity if you live in the US.
If you live in Canada, it is equal to more than double your electricity emissions. Traveling by public transit can roughly halve your transportation emissions.
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If public transportation is not an available option where you live, then using an electric car is also theoretically an option to dramatically reduce your emissions. However, there is a lot of controversy over how environmentally friendly electric vehicles actually are. Those arguments do have some basis, as there are problems with electric cars (namely, the materials that make up their batteries), but gasoline cars are worse.
Electric vehicles use energy far more efficiently. Even so, electric cars do create some emissions from the electricity they use and the materials that make them up. As a result, using public transportation is also a great option and in some cases may even be the better option.
Lawn Clippings
Another way to reduce your carbon emissions is through your lawn. Lawns are a great carbon sink. However, how much carbon dioxide they absorb depends on what you do with the grass clippings after you mow your lawn.
Leaving the cut grass to decompose on the lawn allows for the greatest amount of carbon dioxide absorption. Composting grass clippings still allows your lawn to be a carbon sink, but overall, it will absorb almost three times as less carbon dioxide, assuming that your lawn is well-watered. If the clippings are sent to the landfill, your lawn does not store very much carbon at all. It has been estimated that lawns sequester between 200 and 1,800 pounds of carbon per acre per year, or 734 to 6,606 pounds of carbon dioxide. In fact, in a typical urban setting, your lawn is responsible for 81% to 90% of the carbon dioxide captured on your property.
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So, there you have it. Some of the most effective ways to reduce your impact on the environment are to recycle, reduce your electricity usage, use renewable power, possibly change your diet slightly, travel using public transit, and leave your grass clippings on the lawn. There are other sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the urban home setting, but compared to these ones they are relatively minor. Here is a quick run-through of some other sources of carbon dioxide from the urban home, anyway:
Gas-powered lawn mowers emit, on average, per person per year, 712 pounds of carbon dioxide. To greatly reduce those emissions, you can simply get an electric mower. A typical electric lawn mower uses 39 kilowatts of energy each year. This translates to 31.59 pounds of carbon dioxide for the electricity generation to run it. Alternatively, you can get a reel mower and run it off the energy stored in your own body, the most environmentally friendly and health-boosting option of all.
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If you know that the fashion industry is responsible for 8% to 10% of global emissions, you may be surprised that clothing is not one of the main ways to lower your carbon footprint. Clothes do cause a lot of emissions, but unless you buy a lot of clothing every year, they should not be a major source of carbon dioxide when compared to a gasoline car or your electricity usage. To produce clothes, it does take an exorbitant amount of water, though.
A t-shirt requires 2,700 litres of water for production and to grow the cotton. During this process, it is responsible for the production of 7 kilograms or 15.4 pounds of carbon dioxide. A pair of jeans requires 10,000 litres and emits 33.4 kilograms or 73.6 pounds of carbon dioxide. A dress emits about as much as a pair of jeans. The best way to reduce those emissions and that water usage is to simply make the clothes last as long as possible and only buy as many as you need. 87% of all clothing is incinerated or disposed of in a landfill after being used.
Calculation:
However, you may be wondering just how many pounds of carbon dioxide you would be preventing from entering the atmosphere if you implemented all of the suggestions in this article. If you would like to find out, read these final few paragraphs.
For the average resident of the US, if you start traveling using public transit (4,800 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions prevented), if you reduce your beef consumption and food waste (3,152.24 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions prevented), if you purchase an electric lawn mower (680.4 pounds prevented), if you reduce your electricity consumption by 1,554 kilowatts (1258 pounds prevented), if you recycle all your paper (665.98 pounds prevented), if you recycle all your plastic assuming you are also using a cloth bag and a reusable water bottle (46.25 pounds prevented), and if you reduce your clothes consumption (150 pounds prevented), then you would reduce your personal emissions by 35.35%. This means that you dropped your yearly emissions from 30,420 pounds all the way down to 19,667.13 pounds each year. Congratulations!
Here is the equation in full.
30,420 β 4,800 β 3,152.24 β 680.4 β 1258 β 665.98 β 46.25 β 150 = 19,667.13
But letβs not stop there. If you let your clippings decompose on your lawn, assuming it is a half-acre in size, you would absorb an additional 2,146.9 pounds of carbon dioxide. This brings you down to 17,520.23 pounds each year (a reduction of 42.41%).
If you want to go even further and buy solar panels, and if those solar panels took care of your entire electricity consumption, then you would further reduce your emissions by 7,272.86 pounds. On average, the cost to completely cover the average electricity consumption of a house in the US using solar panels would come in at around 28,000 dollars. However, after 25 years, the solar panels should more than make up for it in electricity savings.
After calculating the emissions prevented if you have solar panels, your yearly emissions would be at 10,247.37 each year. You then would have reduced your carbon footprint by roughly 66.3%. (That is, if everyone else in your house does the same.) Congratulations!
For people living in Canada, the equation is a little different.
For the average Canadian, if you start traveling using public transit (4,574.29 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions prevented), if you reduce your beef consumption and food waste (3,162.59 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions prevented), if you purchase an electric lawn mower (697.57 pounds prevented), if you reduce your electricity consumption by 1,554 kilowatts (575 pounds prevented), if you recycle all your paper (695.8 pounds prevented), if you recycle all your plastic assuming you are also using a cloth bag and a reusable water bottle (46.25 pounds prevented), and if you reduce your clothes consumption (150 pounds prevented), then you would reduce your personal emissions by 31.63%! Congratulations!
Here is the equation in full:
31,305.6 β 4,574.29 β 3,162.59 β 697.57β 575 β 695.8β 46.25β 150= 21,404.1
If you also leave your grass clippings on the lawn (2,146.9 pounds of carbon dioxide prevented) and installed solar panels (3,545 pounds of carbon dioxide prevented), then your average yearly emissions would be cut down to 15,712.2 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions each year, a reduction of 50%!
If you would like more information concerning the statistics and calculations contained in this article, please contact me by writing a comment below.
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