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Frequently asked questions
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What are PDF and Adobe Acrobat?
'PDF' (for Portable Document Format) files can be viewed with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.
'PDF' is a universal file format that preserves all of the fonts and formatting of the original document, even if you don't have the application that created the document.
'PDF' files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed exactly as intended by anyone with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. The free Adobe Acrobat PDF reader is downloadable from the Adobe website.
To read the PDF document with a screen reader please link to the Access Adobe website which provides useful tools and resources. Adobe also has a free online conversion tool for PDF.
If you are looking at a page and want to view a document that is formatted in 'PDF', simply click the link to that document. Acrobat Reader 4.0 will automatically open the document in the 'PDF' file format. Other versions of Acrobat Reader may ask you whether you want to "open" or "save" the file first. You can do either, but if you open it, you may not be able to save the file to a location in your computer. An alternative is to click on the link to the 'PDF' with the right-mouse button and choose 'Save As..'.
If you have saved Acrobat Reader files to a location in your computer, you can open them later by opening up Acrobat Reader and using the toolbar to open a file.
You can also use Windows Explorer to find the file and double click on it. This should cause Acrobat Reader 4.0 to automatically open the document.
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The WEEE Man: How this has been calculated
To establish the weight of the WEEE Man a simple calculation was made. The total household WEEE generated annually by the UK population (1 million tonnes) were divided by the UK population (60 million). Average life expectancy for a UK citizen is 77 years.
If we take a 21-year-old in 2003 living until 2059, anticipating a WEEE growth rate of around 4% they would produce 3.3 tonnes of WEEE in their lifetime. A person born in 2003 and living until 2080, would generate 8 tonnes of WEEE in their lifetime. This means the WEEE Man would be more than twice the size!
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What is Ecological Footprinting?
The ecological footprint (EF) of a product measures the land space that is needed to mine and produce the metals and plastics contained in a product, and for the energy required for manufacturing, using and disposing it.
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Footprint tool: How it works?
By calculating the number of products in your home, school or office you can find out how much productive land space they will require to absorb all the environmental impacts in a given year. You can then see how much land area they approximately need compared to the "average earth share". This is the area that is available if the world's productive land area was equally divided by the current human population. At present, we each have 1.8 global hectares left per person - about the size of two football pitches.
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Footprint tool: What does it mean?
Although the footprint for a mobile phone is very small in comparison to a PC, its footprint (of about 30 global m2) is much larger than its actual size. This is because of the hidden impacts like those from energy consumption, and the area needed to absorb emissions. A 24-kilogram desktop PC uses about 10 times its weight in fossil fuels, materials and chemicals during its production and operation (United Nations, 2004). Currently, a mobile phone is replaced every 18 months and a PC every two years (Worldwatch Institute, 2003, p. 62). Therefore, the more electronic products you have and the faster you throw them away and replace, the larger your footprint gets. So not only are you constantly adding to the WEEE waste heap: Because high-tech products are energy-intensive to make, you are also dumping large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere - about 176kg just to manufacture a PC, or 20 kg for a mobile phone - before they even reach the shop.
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Footprint tool: Who developed the work?
This work has been developed by Dr Sibylle Frey, of Giraffe Innovation Limited, based on her Phd study at Brunel University
www.giraffeinnovation.com
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Why can't I see the flash Footprint tool?
In order to view the interactive flash Footprinting tool below you will need to have the Macromedia flash plugin installed.
Click here to download the latest Flash plugin.
OR view the HTML version by clicking here.
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Why can't I see the Video Clips?
If you are unable to view the video clips, you need to download QuickTime or Windows Media Player.
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