Ecological backpack

Ecological backpack is an indicator of development that can be defined as the set of materials used direct or indirectly thought the product life cycle. Therefore, ecological backpack, expresses both the death weight that drags invisibly each consumer good, i.e. the sum of all materials mobilized and transformed to provide a product or service less its own weight. The backpack is broken down in five categories: abiotic materials, biotic materials, water, soil/ erosion and air.

• Abiotic materials: Those that determine the physical space in which living things lives, such as: water, temperature, light, soil, moisture, oxygen, and nutrients, specifically they are lifeless materials that make an ecosystem.

• Biotic materials: They are part of an ecosystem as the flora and fauna; it includes all those beings that have life, whether plants, animals and products of these organisms.

The main objective of the ecological backpack is educating the consumers to uncover the amount of energy and real natural resources in the production of a kilo of raw material.

We can say that the products that we consume everyday are like an iceberg: what is not visible, the invisible, weights more than you can see, the products. Objects can be found in the shops and apparently our consumption begins when we bought them and its ends when we throw away what is left after our use. However, the entire process that has led to the products in the shop from raw materials has required expenditure on materials, natural resources and energy.

Some examples:

• To produce a ton of paper requires cutting down 14 trees longing of 25 meters high and 20 centimetres in diameter and in the process 100,000 liters of clean water are spent.
• Golf course daily need of water, equivalent to the consumption of 15,000 inhabitants. Many liters of water as a population of 9,000 inhabitants.
• A plane taking off burns the same amount of oxygen that breathes a family for a year.

The ecological backpack aims to show that the current model of development is unsustainable, because goods are produced without including their environmental and health costs. The consumption of energy and raw materials is increasing and the amount of waste generated is growing unchecked.

With the purpose of reducing the ecological backpack, we can begin to change the development model: the production system which should assume sustainability as a priority. Concepts such as use and pull or the obsolescence should disappear, at the time that it boosts the upcycling (supraciclaje).

Bibliography

Sergio Andrade. (2011). Medio Ambiente Urbano. 06/07/2011, de Consumer. Web site: http://www.consumer.es/web/es/medio_ambiente/urbano/2011/07/06/201635.php#sthash.XRSCybZU.dpuf

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