Science Expo - Carbon Footprint

Driving questions Audience 3:  What steps can be taken to decrease Metro-Nashville’s carbon footprint?  How can Nashville become a “green” city?

What are Carbon Footprints?  Carbon footprints are the overall amount of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and other climate- changing gases being emitted by an activity or organization.  Electricity production and heating with fossil fuels, transport operations, and industrial and agricultural processes cause CO 2 emissions.  What we do in our daily lives influences carbon footprint as well: what we eat, what we buy, what we throw away, how we travel, etc.

Waste control: Reduce the amount of plastic bags used for groceries Recycling: Improve recycling efficiency Electricity: Decrease the usage of electricity

(1) Electricity Electricity: Carbon footprint per kilowatt-hour  Fossil fuels, nuclear fuel, wind, and water are used to generated electricity.  On average, 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity purchased in the United States produces about 1 pound of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ).

(1) Electricity Decrease the usage of electricity 1.Turn off the light as long as you leave the room. Risk: People (like me) may not be care about it. Solution: Keep it in mind that the electricity is not free. The parents pay the electric bill for each family. The government pays the electric bill for our school.

(1) Electricity Decrease the usage of electricity : continued 2. Set temperature of air condition properly. Risk: People enjoy warm in winter and cold in summer. Solution: Set a public standard.

 According to the Environmental Protection Agency report, 500 billion to a trillion plastic bags are used all around the world each year! Plastic bags: CO 2 emissions during their lifetime  Carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions for the production and the burning of plastic bags are about 6 kg CO 2 per kg of plastic emissions (2) Waste Control

How to reduce the amount of plastic bags used for groceries 1.Have people use very few plastic bags to carry their groceries. Risk: Plastic bags make it easy to carry items for shopping. People may not want to get rid of these convenient things. Solution: Groceries should encourage people not to use or to use fewer shopping bags. An example would be to have a cash back to the customers who don’t use plastic bags. Let’s say you had to use 3 bags for your groceries. If you could save 5 cents per bag, you could save 15 cents total. Actually, the grocery store business will not be affected if they ban all of the shopping bags (Good example of Costco). (2) Waste Control

2. Use paper bags instead of plastic bags. Risk: People think that paper bags are more easier to break and harder to carry than the plastic bags. Solution: Improve the quality of paper bags. How to reduce the amount of plastic bags used for groceries: continued (2) Waste Control

3. Encourage people to reuse cloth bags. Risk: People don’t like spending money on bags when they can just get some plastic bags for free. Solution: Ask people to buy cloth bags for shopping. The grocery store provides recycle services for the cloth bags with the same selling price. How to reduce the amount of plastic bags used for groceries: continued (2) Waste Control

Improve recycling efficiency 1.Have an assigned time each month to pick up recycling for sorted aluminum, glass, and plastic (not just paper). Risk: People may think it’s a waste of time to sort through the items. Solution: The government can give a gift card or even decrease tax to reward the person/family for sorting through different recycling items. (3) Recycling

2. Place more tin “boxes” outside of schools and other places where people can throw away different recycling items in different boxes. Risk: Some people might think that there’s not enough room to place these objects, and they’re a waste of space. Solution: Place these things in well-went-to-places, like the library, schools, work offices, and hospitals. Sometimes when parents drop their kids off to and from school every day, they can also recycle the things they’ve sorted through. Another way to help this risk is to design the shape of the box according to the space provided. It could be: a circle, a triangle, etc. Improve recycling efficiency: continued (3) Recycling

3. Buy the recycling items door to door and sell the items to the recycling center for more money. Risk: People may think that they wouldn’t make a lot of money. Solution: If the government organized and trained the homeless or jobless people to perform this job, the government could save money for Food Stamp and decrease the burden of tax payers. Meanwhile, they could increase the efficiency of recycling. Improve recycling efficiency: continued (3) Recycling

The most important thing is to increase the education: Let everyone know that their behavior influences carbon footprints. Gradually… People will automatically do things that protect our environment. Ending