The environmental impacts of your meal

 1) What environmental impacts were associated with the production of your meal or item?

- Tostadas are usually connected with environmental impacts such as corn fields, large factory manufactures, and pollution from farms. 

(a) Determine and describe, in as much detail as you can, where at least two ingredients of your meal OR components of your consumer item were produced. 

- Tostadas are made of many ingredients however the main two that are always needed are the tostada or shell which are made of large corn fields being harvested and then shipped to a large factory manufacturer to then be processed into the actual tostada shell. 

    - Tostadas are usually made in Mexico and then shipped all around the world to be sold at large levels.

-  the Next step would be beans that come from a large field then yet again shipped to a large factory manufacturer to be processed and taken to stores to be sold. 

    - Beans are usually grown in Texas and processed in texas before being shipped worldwide. 

Next, describe the environmental impacts associated with the production of these ingredients or components (or likely impacts, if you can’t trace the actual impacts), by answering the following questions:

(b) How did your product affect resources like water (groundwater or surface water – did its production deplete or pollute them?), soil, and ecosystems (for instance, did its production reduce biodiversity or habitat)?

    - This product affects surface water because it depletes surface water because the crops needed/grown are very water heavy and require more water than what is around. It also takes lots of nutrients from the ground that ends up leaving the soil 'dead' as in having close to no nutrients for other plants to use should they exist in the same area.

(c) Were chemicals or fossil fuels used to produce your meal or item? Which ones? If so, what environmental effects did they have?

- none

(d) How, if at all, did the production of your meal or item contribute to carbon dioxide emissions—and thus potentially to climate change? How, if at all, did it affect air quality?

    - The production of this meal contributes highly to carbon dioxide emissions because the factories used to produce these products cause the air quality to diminish along with the large machinery that is eneded to run the fields as large as they are made for commercial use.

(e) In what ways are these impacts “local”? Do some places bear more of the environmental impacts of your meal than others? In what ways are they “global”?

    -These impacts are local because it destroys the local soil and water in the area however these impacts are also global as they add to the growing issue of carbon monoxide with global warming. 

(2) What environmental impacts were associated with the transportation, distribution, and consumption of the ingredients or materials you’ve chosen? Describe the environmental impacts associated with the distribution and transportation of these ingredients or materials, by answering the following questions:

(a) How did the meal or product get to you? Did it reach you by airplane? By truck? By wheelbarrow? Did you buy it at a supermarket? A farmer’s market? A restaurant? A corner store? A “big box” store? Etc.

    - You would get the meal/products to you by a truck than one of the many options next to either a supermarket/cornerstore/"big box" store/restaurant.

(b) Which ingredient or part of your product traveled the furthest to get to you? Which ingredients or components, if any, would you consider “local,” and why?

    - The ingredient of this product that traveled the furthest to get to me would be the tostada shells that come from Mexico and the ingredient I would consider local would be the chicken I would buy. Because the chicken can be bought from a local farmer's market that produces and kills its own chickens. 

(c) What kind of waste did your meal or item produce? (Consider packaging, food waste, etc.) Where will this waste go, and what will its environmental impacts include?

    - This meal will make lots of water waste, packaging waste, gas emission waste, chemical waste, metal waste, and plastic waste. A lot of this waste will be dumped at a local landfill and continue to build up as some of these waste products cannot be broken down nor reused. In doing so the environmental impacts will include growing landfills and gas emission which leads to global warming.