The carbon footprint of an item doesn’t just come from using it.
Production processes like mining or farming create emissions before you get ahold of it.
Transportation moves goods across continents, burning fuel the entire time..
Disposal adds more impact when things end up in landfills, rot, and release greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.
These steps often happen far away, so we don’t even notice them.
We should all understand the hidden carbon footprint of stuff because it helps us make smarter choices that can lead to a more healthy planet.
Small shifts can cut emissions over time, and anyone who helps cuts emissions even more.
I wanted to break down 10 everyday items to show where these hidden costs hide.
The List: 10 Everyday Items and Their Hidden Carbon Footprints
These 10 items are part of our daily lives, but their carbon footprints pile up behind the scenes without us even knowing.
Smartphone
Smartphones keep us connected, from texting friends to scrolling social media, and they’re awesome, but they do come with an environmental cost.
Making one involves mining rare earth metals like lithium and cobalt, often in far-off countries that most people have never heard of.
Factories then assemble the parts, using a ton of energy, and then they get shipped all over the world on cargo ships that burn fossil fuels to get around.
Plus, many of us upgrade every couple of years, leaving old phones to pile up.
One smartphone’s lifetime footprint can equal about 180 miles driven in a gas car. That’s like a round trip from New York to Philadelphia.
If you want to cut its impact you can hang onto your phone longer because even an extra year or two extra can shrink its yearly carbon footprint.
Conventional Cotton T-Shirt
A cotton T-shirt feels like something simple that we wear all the time to express ourselves, but mostly to cover up.
But its carbon footprint cost starts with
growing conventional cotton, which needs water, pesticides, and land.
Then, turning that cotton into fabric takes energy in spinning and weaving mills, and dyeing and finishing the shirt uses chemicals and even more power.
Then it ships all the way from places like Bangladesh or China to your closet.
A single T-shirt can produce 7 kg of CO2 equivalent on average, which is equal to driving 10 miles in a car.
And the water use alone can hit 700 gallons per shirt, which is 35 showers, 14 car washes, or 1,400 days of drinking water.
Conventional cotton is one of the
worst clothing materials for the environment.
If you want to cut those carbon emissions, get organic cotton t-shirts, like the stuff we have! Organic cotton uses less water and less chemicals, making it way better for the environment. Plus,
organic cotton has many more benefits beyond the environment.
Coffee
Coffee wakes us up, a daily ritual for millions of humans all across the world. I’m literally drinking it as I write this post!
Its footprint brews quietly behind the scenes, though, since growing beans often means
clearing forests in places like the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil or Ethiopia.
And of course, shipping those beans across oceans burns fossil fuels adding carbon into our atmosphere.
Roasting them takes energy, and brewing at home or in cafes adds a bit more energy on top.
One cup of coffee footprint is equal to driving 2 miles in a car. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but drinking coffee every day would be like driving an extra 700 miles in a year adding all those extra emissions to our atmosphere.
But, the deforestation part is the real problem here.
Losing our rainforest causes big problems for everyone.
If you love your coffee like me, and agree that it's one of
humanities greatest foods, look for brands that support sustainable or organic farms. A bag of shade-grown beans can mean fewer trees cut down, and fewer greenhouse gasses emitted.
Plastic Water Bottle
Plastic water bottles are handy for staying hydrated on the go, but as we all know, plastic is no good for our environment.
These water bottle’s carbon cost starts with oil, the raw material for making plastic. Yes, plastic is made of oil.
Pulling that oil from the ground and turning it into bottles uses energy and releases gases, and add any kind of shipping costs on top of that.
Sadly, most don’t even get recycled, so they sit in landfills or oceans for years. Plus plastic can take up to 1,000 years to break down, meaning some of these could still be around for your “great x 32” grandchildren.
One bottle’s footprint can equal driving half a mile in a car. So if you grab a few daily, it adds up fast.
Recycling helps, but since only about 30% make it that far it doesn’t really help so much.
Switching to a reusable bottle instead is a great help for the environment. It means less plastic polluting our and our children’s Earth.
Beef Burger
A beef burger is a nice, juicy, and filling classic comfort food, so it’s a little sad to see how bad it is for the environment.
Its carbon footprint comes mostly from the cow itself.
Cattle release methane, a gas that traps heat much more than carbon dioxide.
Raising them takes land, which is often cleared from forests destroying ecosystems, and they require feed like corn or soy, which further needs land and resources (like water and pesticides).
One burger can match driving 20 miles in a car. That’s my daily commute.
There are a couple ways to get around this.
Since methane makes beef stand out compared to chicken or pork, swapping for one of these instead will help. And eating less beef, maybe once a week instead of daily, can lower its impact without ditching burgers entirely.
Laptop
Similar to smartphones, laptops power our lives from our work to studies to Netflix binges.
Building one takes a lot of energy, from mining metals to assembling chips to shipping them all around the globe.
Factories in places like China run on coal-heavy power grids, sending emissions spewing into our atmosphere.
Using it daily burns power over time, though it’s still less than making it, it adds on.
One laptop’s carbon footprint over its life can equal driving 250 miles in a car. That’s like going from Los Angeles to San Diego and back.
Repairs can keep it running longer, but many get replaced in a few years. If you can hold onto yours a bit longer, or buy refurbished, you could make a big difference lowering the average carbon emissions per laptop.
Paper Notebook
A paper notebook is a classic for quickly jotting notes or sketching ideas, but did know about its hidden carbon footprint?
It all starts with trees being cut for pulp to make into paper. Logging can thin forests that soak up carbon dioxide, and ruin the biodiversity of the local wildlife.
Turning wood into paper uses plenty of water, chemicals, and energy in paper mills.
One notebook’s footprint might equal driving 3 miles in a car. It’s small, but stacks up if you use a lot of them.
Paper from virgin forests hits harder than recycled stuff, so check out notebooks made from recycled paper. It skips the tree-cutting step and keeps the Earth healthy.
Car Tires
Car tires are obviously important in our lives. They let us commute to work, go to the grocery store, and road trip across the country.
But those car tires have an environmental cost that we don’t normally think about when we think of how bad cars are for the environment.
Making the tires starts with rubber, which are tapped from rubber trees or made from oil if it’s synthetic rubber, which is even worse for the environment.
Manufacturing further burns energy, and shipping them to factories and shops across the world adds to the problem.
Worn out tires often end up in landfills, and are tough to break down because disposal is tricky, with few recycling options.
The life of four tires on a car can equal driving 80 miles in emissions. That’s a solid day trip to the next city.
If you want to make your tires last longer, make sure to keep a check on tire pressure. Consistently good tire pressure saves fuel and stretches their life a bit.
Or, you could skip the car in general and
take public transportation.
Avocado
You know how the meme goes. Us millennials really love our avocados. And honestly, who doesn’t? They’re freakin’ delicious.
Let’s look at the hidden carbon footprint of avocados.
Growing them takes tons of water, especially in dry places like Mexico or California where water is getting more scarce.
Irrigation pumps run on energy, and fertilizers and pesticides add to the carbon emissions.
Since they only grow in a few places, they need to be shipped to places like Europe or the U.S., burning fossil fuels the entire time.
One avocado’s footprint can match driving 4 miles in a car.
That’s a quick errand’s worth. Water use is the silent giant here, often unseen on the label. Buy local if you can, or eat them less often. Seasonal fruits from nearby might carry less baggage.
Either way, the
carbon footprint of vegetables is nothing compared to the carbon footprint of meat.
Fast Fashion Sneakers
Fast fashion sneakers are cheap and trendy, great for a fresh daily look. But, like most fast fashion, these sneakers are horrible for the environment.
Synthetic materials like polyester, which is pretty much just plastic, come from oil, processed in energy-hungry factories.
Labor in distant countries keeps the manufacturing costs low, but they need to be shipped back to the market where they will be sold.
They wear out fast, meaning you only get a few wears before it ends up rotting in a landfill. Did I mention these are just plastic that will likely last centuries?
One pair’s carbon footprint can equal driving 15 miles in a car.
Their short life means more pairs over time, more emissions, and more pairs taking up space on this Earth.
It would be an even better idea to invest in a durable pair that will last for years instead. Over your lifetime, you will be responsible for less of what hurts the planet, and you might even save money over the long run.
What Can We Do About It?
The carbon footprints of everyday items can feel big and they add up over time, but small steps make a difference.
Try buying second-hand clothes or gadgets from thrift stores because it keeps stuff out of landfills and is one less thing that needs to be produced.
Cutting back on beef, even just one meal a week, lowers methane emissions, and choosing local produce, like apples over shipped avocados, cuts transport costs.
Reuse a water bottle instead of grabbing single-use plastic bottles. Hang onto your phone or laptop a year longer.
These aren’t huge changes, but they add up over time. You don’t need to redo your whole life or anything. All you have to do is change a few habits.
If you want more ways to help the environment, you can enter your email at the end of this post to get our
135 Ways That You Can Help the Environment Starting TODAY! It’s packed with simple, real tips you’ll wish you’d known sooner. You can get a little taste with
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Final Thoughts
So, we’ve seen how everyday items like smartphones, T-shirts, and burgers carry hidden environmental costs due to production, shipping, and disposal costs.
The good news?
Knowing this information is the first step to doing something about it. How could you possibly do something to help if you didn’t know about it?
Now, you don’t have to fix everything at once, but at the very least awareness opens the door to smarter choices.
So, what’s one item you’ll rethink after reading this? Maybe it’s skipping that plastic bottle or keeping your laptop longer.
Your next move matters. Don’t forget to enter your email below to grab our
free ebook and start helping the environment today!
