The Human Footprint (3)
In an average lifetime, one gets through 8 cars, 3.5 washing machines, 3.4 fridges, 3.2 microwaves, 4.8 televisions, 9.8 DVD players, 15 computers….
240 kg of fossil fuels, 22 kg of chemicals, and 1.5 tons of water are needed to produce a home computer.
£920 is spent per person on the average Christmas. Over a lifetime, 628 Christmas gifts are received.
The average person spends £385 per year on clothes and £3,222 over a lifetime. The clothing market is worth £23 billion in the U.K.
500 litres of water and 40 g of pesticides are needed to produce a t-shirt.
570 kg of chemicals are added to the water system through washing clothes.
May 16th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
If the average person spends £385 per year on clothes, how can they spend only £3,222 on clothes over a lifetime?!
(I see you took the figures again from The Human Footprint. Reading a little further down this page, I see that the average person will take 59 foreign holidays. So how many “average people” are you already, Roger?!)
May 16th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
Sharp-eyed as always, Nick. I should have checked the statistics more carefully. It’s clear that the £3,222 figure is a typographical error. It should be £30,222 (£385 x 78.5).
As for the foreign travel question, I confess that I am already equivalent to three average people having been abroad a total of 158 times. Of course, statistically somebody has to be higher than average!
May 19th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Hey guys, was it not Disraeli that said, ‘there are lies, damn lies and statistics’.
So far, none of those figures quoted apply to me, and if I had £920 to spend on Christmas, I would find something better to do with that amount of cash.
I am only onto my second computer and am 69 yrs young.
I have just got my first DVD player.
So who is this ‘average’ person. I would like to meet them.
May 19th, 2007 at 1:05 pm
All this proves, Mavis, is that you are not typical of UK citizens – but then I always knew that you were different and special.
After all, statistically the average world citizen is Chinese but neither of us is Chinese.
Average is a statistical construct – one could use mean or mode – and to show the impact we make on the environment is probably the most useful way of illustrating the figures.