The Human Footprint

The journey of the human footprint through a single person's entire life is one of waste and disruption of our natural ecological systems.  The Human Footprint video was a huge eye opener on the real affects we Americans have on our planet.  Even from birth we contribute to the slow demise of our environment.  A human baby alone will go through 3,796 diapers in a 2.5 year period, and what do we do with these diapers, throw them away.  This creates a non-biodegradeable cocktail of toxins including crude oil and plastic.  The toxins are left on the Earth long after these babys are grown and gone.  There is an estimated amount of 18 billion diapers thrown away every year.  Thats a lot of waste being contributed to the environment and thats only the beginning.  As a human grows from infant to child to adult they leave behind a devestating trail of waste approxamently 64 tons of it throughout a single lifetime in America.  These statistics are sad, if we are to continue living on our planet we need to change our ways.  We need to become a less wasteful country and a less wasteful planet.  We should shift from a society of consumerism to a society of sustainability.  If we can do that there may be hope to reverse the damage we have already caused to our planet and decrease the amount of waste we contribute every year.