Teo, Buenos Aires, Argentina: My Carbon Footprint

Oct 23, 2020 by Teo

My Carbon footprint is 13.70 tons of CO2 per year (roughly 12,428 Kg!). I always thought of myself as a “green” person. I walk everywhere, I recycle, and I am generally conscious of things like leaving the lights on.  At first, I was genuinely shocked when I saw that I had such an impact on the environment. But then, I started thinking about and analyzing my results.  

Most of my emissions come from travelling. My family loves visiting other countries, and I do too. I have travelled abroad many times, and this has made me into an open-minded person, although I had never stopped to consider the effect of my travelling. I enjoy learning about other cultures and environments, and I also want to reduce my footprint, so this project is great as it mixes both! From now on, I will travel less or try to find cleaner ways of travelling.

My second area of high emission is my house. I have lived my entire life in the same house, but I am just now beginning to realize the cost of maintaining it. We have efficient lightbulbs, we recycle, especially organic waste for compost and plastics that later become plastic wood. We have a garden where we grow a variety of things, like tomatos/tomatoes, potatos/potatoes, lettuce and more.  We do not use renewable energy, as they are quite costly, especially on a developing country such as Argentina, but we do try to reduce our electricity consumption by turning off unnecessary lamps and lights, and by taking advantage of solar light as much as possible.

I have also arrived to the conclusion that even if I changed my lifestyle to a perfect eco-friendly life, my change alone would not do much. Change like this is only effective if the community/country changes as well. I want to spread awareness and to do this, I must first learn. I am eager to continue working on this project, learning from other students and to meet people from other countries!

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