Measure your ecological footprint

Have you ever wondered how green your lifestyle is?

The latest way to measure this is by assessing our ecological footprint. This is a measure of the biologically productive land that is needed to support our individual lifestyle, to produce the resources we use, including food, oil, wood and water, and also to absorb the waste that we produce, such as carbon dioxide, pollution and refuse. Worldwide, there exists about 1.8 global hectares per person with which to do this. Our 'fair share' of the globe's resources works out at around two hectares per person per year, whereas the average person in the UK requires 5.3ha each (the equivalent of six football pitches). A flight to the east coast of America can add another two to three hectares on to your personal footprint for the year.

There are a number of websites to work out for your ecological footprint:

Ecological footprint calculators

Earthday.net/footprint

Carbonfootprint.com

Greenchoices.org
bp.com

Bestfootforward.com

Resurgence.org

To look at the impact of electronic waste try:

weeeman.org

Further reading:

Independent article

Times Online - "How to be green"