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I gazed despairingly into the fridge. A moldy tomato (little else) looked back. I wouldn't risk eating that. It seemed capable of fighting back. A nearby fast-food restaurant could supply lunch.
I turned in at the garish red and yellow sign, placing my order at the counter, accepting the offer of fries.' They had, predictably, run out of smiles. Moments later a burger and chips appeared. I lifted the lid of the packaging and looked inside. It didn't look back.

As I ate, my mind wandered. Minced beef, lettuce, tomato (not further evolved than normal), bread rolls, chips, cheese. The throw-away burger packaging. Where did it all come from? Where, more importantly, would it go?

I figured this is probably what happens:
Most burger ingredients start off on a farm. Bread rolls are mostly wheat, chips are just sliced potato, mince is ground up dead cow, and so on. Cows and potatoes are converted into beef and chips. Raw materials are processed in factories. These factories and farms demand electricity and water. We build a few electricity generation plants to meet the demand. There is no electricity without burning something like coal, so we dig a coal pit. Burger ingredients must be transported to the restaurant. That involves burning more fossil fuel, so we sink an oil shaft in another country and ship the oil here. We also build a harbor and some roads to facilitate transportation. The burger packaging follows a similar route, making similar demands of the environment. Finally the fast-food place cooks my food, and when I'm finished eating I throw away the packaging. It is eventually landfilled.

Shock! Horror! I realized these farms, factories, mines, oil rigs, roads, power-plants, ships, and waste disposal sites were there because I was eating this hamburger. Without my selfish hunger for junk-food there would be more space on earth for jungles and exotic species of dust-mite! I thought I used a two-bedroom-flat-sized piece of land, but now I saw my excesses consumed infinitely more. My guilt made me shudder.

I have illustrated the concept of Ecological Footprinting proposed by Rees
and Wackernagel. The Ecological Footprint is the area of productive land needed to sustain a defined population (e.g. that of a city or country) indefinitely. The productive land need not be near the defined population - it can be located anywhere on Earth. If my personal ecological footprint were only as large as my flat, I'd have a major problem. I wouldn't be able to bring food, water,

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