Carbon footprint and ways to reduce it

Individuals who are concerned about the environment and want to contribute to reduce their share generally look at their carbon footprint and try to reduce it. What is carbon footprint? According to many sources it is the total of emissions caused by greenhouse gas sources by individuals, corporations, events, and production processes. Due to lack of large amount of data that is hard to collect, no one knows exactly how big it is or how much each person contributes. However, there are published reports that indicate the approximate share of each sector that contributes to carbon footprint. The largest share comes from power stations that contributes an estimated 21.3 percent followed by 16.8 percent from industrial processes, 14 percent form fuel used in transportation, 12.5 percent from agriculture byproducts, 11.3 percent from fossil fuel retrieval, processing and distribution, 10.3 percent from residential, commercial and other sources, 10 percent from land use and biomass burning and 3.4 percent from waste disposal and treatment.

As individuals we can contribute to reduce carbon footprint by Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and Refuse. These measures are aimed at making a zero contribution to the soil. Experts say if one household recycle at least one half of its waste, it can help to reduce 1.2 tons of carbon dioxide a year.