disadvantages of being older

What kind of carbon footprint am I going to leave?

Let's see. When I was young, people burned their trash. Yep, burned it, meaning toxic chemicals and leaves.
When I was young, they didn't have recycling in most cities and most items weren't recycled anyway.
When I was young. gas was cheaper and the term carpooling was used only in ultra-urban areas (L.A., NYC, etc). My state still has no "carpool lane". The term cruising sparingly used, but most kids drove everywhere for no good reason. I include myself, as I drove to places I could have easily walked or rode my bike.
When I was young, moderation was not encouraged.
Only in my very youngest age did many bottles get recycled for "money" and very few types of bottles.
When I was younger, everyone used charcoal grills. Many people were so enamored with having this caveman like ability to make fire that "limited use" of lighter fluid was a sissy-man way of making fire. In the end, chemical-tasting burgers lost to correctly cooked modest-amount-of-fluid burgers.
Fast food restaurants didn't use paper wrappers alone, oh no. They used polystyrene (egg carton material) that does isn't biodegradable.
Kids could buy stuff for the folks like, dangeroud chemicals, fireworks, cigarettes.
I remember energy efficiency ratings on appliances and furnaces being below 70s.
I remember single-paned glass windows.
I remember people burning building material when remodeling.
I remember throwing away tons of hazardous material down the drains and in the trash.
I know that I started burning fires for the fun of it (a log here), paper there. I don't mean arson, but rather stupidly making fire because I could.

Well pardon my ignorance and that of the older generation. While I am guilty of leaving a nasty carbon footprint because the world was far more ignorant and lazy, I am on a better track.

I try to recycle everything that I can. The local company doesn't help by annually reducing the variety of material they recycle. I try to save use "Toxaway Day" for the time I need to properly destroy hazardous material. I am trying.

So I when I die I will have left a nasty little carbon footprint, but the "top layer" of it will be lighter than the bottom layer.

The question is, where do younger people stand with their greater level of knowledge?