This is one of the articles I wrote for “Myg”, the Magazine for youth generation of Info Front – Prilep association. I tried to explain the concept of the ecological footprint.
When we walk on the sand, or when the soles of our shoes are 
wet, if we look behind us we see that we have left tracks.
We can’t note it everyday (since fortunately it’s not always raining or unfortunately we are not always on the beach!) but we should keep in mind that everywhere we go and everything we do, we left footprints of our passage.
This means that the humankind, considered as a whole, has its own footprint on the life of the Earth, composed by each individual’s life.
The concept was conceived 23 years ago by two professors in Canada, and was named “ecological footprint”. It is an indicator (measured in global hectares per capita) of how much land and water an individual, population or activity requires to produce all the resources it consumes, and to absorb the waste it generates. It means that everyone of us has at its disposal a certain amount of hectares to not damage the reproductive capacity of the Earth.
For example, if you drink a glass of milk, you have to consider that the milk comes from a huge work, made by the water used for the wheat fields to feed the cow, the pollution caused by the activities of the farm, the packaging and transportation of milk you are drinking. Then, you throw in the trash the bottle of milk, which has to be recycled or burnt. All this process has an impact on the life of the Earth.
The glass of milk has its own ecological footprint, which with all the other things you do in your life, form your personal ecological footprint, that in other words is your impact on the environment.
To have an idea about it, you can make a short test on www.footprint.wwf.org.uk