Pedro Almeida – Woodchips

What things did you enjoy the most about your experience this week?

This week i enjoyed really understanding the scales of the carbon footprint that my different actions cause on my total sum. Some of my routine actions have a huge impact, and others have a very low impact.

What were the main challenges you faced during the week?

I faced the challenge of integrating the time needed to be part of this experiment, but I managed to do the job. Some questions about my capabilities of changing my lifestyle arose, though 🙂

What were your main lessons learned of the week?

The main lesson I learned was that It will be hard to change my lifestyle. I live in a rural and mountainous region, where the only local public transportation is a school bus which I cannot take. And the electrical vehicle is not an option for me yet. So I am wondering what can do…to live under 2,5 tons of CO2 eq. per year. My family pollutes a lot for mobility reasons, with fossil fuels. Somehow I have to find out activities to do that are more than carbon-free, like composting, or promoting tree planting, which sequester carbon and will conceal my overall carbon footprint. 

What would have made it easier for you to achieve your target this week?

This week I applied a lot of woodchips as mulching around trees. This is carbon sequestering if applied correctly, I mean, the behavior in the soil as carbon negative or positive depends on the rate of assimilation of the carbon and nitrogen available by the trees. Accounting for this could make it easier to achieve my target. Nevertheless, even with the resilience factor that I cut the woodchips myself, the woodchipper that I use runs on petrol, 1L per hour, which I use 6 hours, so a balance should be calculated to understand the reach of my action. Also, I reused the water of washing vegetables to water my plants. But it’s tap water, so the footprint appears to be zero for the household, belonging to the government.