I am interested in finding a website or some type of resource that will have conversions from statistical/numerical data re. environmental impacts to something that people can relate to. For example, we generate X amount of garbage each per year - that is enough to fill such and such building full of garbage. Has anyone seen anything like this?
Heather Gowland
Environmental Programming Assistant
The City of Lethbridge
Canada
Expressing Environmental Impacts Vividly
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Heather
Check out www.chrisjordan.com
Chris Jordan is a graphic artist who depicts mass consumerism. It's really visual stuff that create quite an impact.
Doug McKenzie-Mohr actually showed some of these pictures at a recent workshop I went to in Calgary.
Alina Siegfried
Water Issues Coordinator
Saskatchewan Environmental Society
Canada
www.environmentalsociety.ca
Check out www.chrisjordan.com
Val Loewen
Whitehorse
Val Loewen
government of Yukon
Canada
Check out a tool on EPA's website that converts waste management practices to savings in energy and greenhouse gas.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/wycd/waste/calculators/Warm_home.html
Betsy
Betsy Smidinger
Division Director
EPA
United States
Here are some from the Australian EPA (Qld) Public Place Recycling program. E.g
"Recycling just one plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a light bulb for 30 hours."
http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/environmental_management/waste/public_place_recycling/
Hope this helps,
Candice Laidlaw Thompson
Sustainability Awareness Projects Officer
Toowoomba Regional Council
Australia
One more easy to use resource:
http://www.co.cass.in.us/ccswd/trivia.htm
Kaye Johnston
United States
...
Hi Heather-
When I worked for a municipality in Massachusetts, we calculated this ourselves by converting tons of trash into volume and then working with the GIS department to determine the size of Fenway Stadium (where the Boston Red Sox play, a very popular landmark in the Boston, MA metro area).
We had also looked at how many miles of trash trucks, lined bumper to bumper, would be needed for a year's worth of trash and compared it to a well-known street that runs through the City. This one is easy - as long as you know how much a trash truck can hold and how long one is, you can figure it out. Hope this is helpful! Good luck!
Courtney Forrester
United States