Eye Opener: Photo Essay

Florida's Eco-Footprint

For my Photo Essay I decided to do it on my trip to AAHPERD in Tampa, Florida. I wanted to see what kind of effort I could find for going green and what kind of Eco-footprint they were making.

In my first find of going green took place in some of the hotels in Florida. The hotel Howard Johnson that we stayed in they had the Project Planet. In Project Planet they wanted to conserve the water usage by only washing linen and towels that needed to be washed. It works out by having the guest that are staying more than one night, to place the the sign on the bed if they want clean linens. For the towels you just hang up the used towels instead of placing them on the floor. This was such a good idea if you think about how many people were staying in the hotel...then think about how many lines and towels were being used. That is a lot of water being saved along with energy that would have been used to clean too! I also found a hotel that used hand towels instead of paper towels to dry hands. I thought it was such a good idea once again because it not only saves trees but as it is less waste too!

My next find was at the convention were I first saw the sign promoting everyone to recycle their bottles, cans, and paper there. I give them two thumbs for that one there alone! Then after checking into the convention everyone that was signed up there received a small bag that was made from recycled materials. Now I thought that was pretty cool too that they chose to pick a bag that was Eco-friendly! 

My next finds took place all around Florida when were we out and about. My first sign that I found "Don't be a fossil fool rethink coal" was on the way to the 

convention and I thought it was a cool message to put up but I am sure if there was anything being done to back up the message, but still it was pretty cool. The next sign I found was at the Clearwater beach which indicated that they were using reclaimed water, that we all learned about in class so I thought it was a really good to capture this and share it with "you all" (just a little bit of southern talk for you). Then on the beach they had garbage cans placed along the entire beach which promotes people to throw away their trash in the cans instead of just leaving it on the beach but we found out that some people were just too lazy to walk a few steps to throw it in the can.

Overall I think Florida is making a pretty good effort to diminish their Eco-footprint which really made me happy :) but it also got me thinking if we could do the same things that they are doing to lessen our footprint.

I just want to leave you on a little reminder to "Be kind" to our earth and keep on thinking of ways to make your Eco-footprint smaller!

"It's not easy to be Green."-Kermit