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How to Reverse the Human Footprint

The term "footprint" is an environmental term used to describe how large of an impact a person, city or nation has on the environment. While it is hard to reduce this on a large scale, it is manageable for individuals to take actions that will reduce their own footprint significantly. If enough individuals are motivated to reduce environmental footprints, it begins to reduce the larger footprint cast by a community or city as a whole.

Instructions

- 1
  Stop junk mail from coming to your home. Request that a company no longer mail you things and the law requires that it stops. This prevents more than 40 pounds of paper from showing up at your house each year, all of which needs to be recycled or thrown out and which takes fuel, energy and time to produce and ship to you.
- 2
  Eat local food. Food that is harvested, packaged or manufactured around the world consumes a huge amount of energy to end up on your table. If you eat food that is grown, packaged and sold locally, you reduce the size of your ecological footprint considerably.
- 3
  Change your primary transportation method. Your vehicle is one of the primary contributors to an invasive ecological footprint. If you need a car, make sure it is a fuel-efficient model, and have it serviced regularly to ensure the best possible fuel economy. Rely on public transportation as much as you can, and walk or bike when possible. This not only reduces your footprint, but improves your health.
- 4
  Implement energy-efficient practices while in your home. This includes setting the heat on a timer so that it is not heating the house when you are away. Turn off all appliances when not in use and unplug them when you are away from home.
- 5
  Purchase items that have less chemical products in them, as the production of those products is bad for the environment. For example, skin care products and tooth paste that are made from natural or food ingredients primarily are the greenest options. The more lengthy chemical names you see on a label, the worse that product is for the environment.

Nature