October's Green Challenge: Idle chatter
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Fall is here. A crisp coolness is in the air and you can almost smell the leaves turning orange on the trees. There is also another smell -- one common to schoolyards and drive-thrus. It is the smell of exhaust from the idling car. I count myself as a moderate offender in this category. I'm better now that I've moved out of the Northeast when idling the car early in the morning ensured that my hands would not freeze to the steering wheel. However, there are plenty of times that I catch myself idling unnecessarily.
For this month's challenge I will be more conscious of my idling habit and in addition will take the following steps to lessen my impact on the environment:
I will still be idling at stop lights for fear of getting beat up if I dared to turn off the engine.
IDLING FACTS:
Two minutes of idling wastes about as much gas as one mile of travel. The problem is that with idling, you aren't going anywhere. The only thing that you are doing is releasing an bunch of carbon dioxide into the air and melting ice caps (or something like that). There is the common misconception that turning off your car and restarting it uses more gas and causes more wear on the engine than idling for a couple of minutes. This is false. The truth is that idling for over ten seconds uses more gas that restarting the car. A good rule to go by is if you will be idling for more than 30 seconds, turn it off.
Join me this month, won't you? Leave a comment and let my know what your bad idling habits are.
Fall is here. A crisp coolness is in the air and you can almost smell the leaves turning orange on the trees. There is also another smell -- one common to schoolyards and drive-thrus. It is the smell of exhaust from the idling car. I count myself as a moderate offender in this category. I'm better now that I've moved out of the Northeast when idling the car early in the morning ensured that my hands would not freeze to the steering wheel. However, there are plenty of times that I catch myself idling unnecessarily.For this month's challenge I will be more conscious of my idling habit and in addition will take the following steps to lessen my impact on the environment:
- Ditch the drive-thru. I don't eat a lot of McDonalds but you can find me at one of two drive-thrus once or twice a week. My weaknesses are drive-thru ATMs and Starbucks. From now on, I will be doing walk-up banking and actually doing face to face transactions with a barista if I want my iced chai. Oh, the horror.
- Picking up The Husband. On days that I pick up The Husband from work, I am usually distracted by screaming kids in the backseat and forget to turn off the car immediately as I sit outside his office. It's not until a couple songs by Dan Zanes and a handful of snacks tossed towards the backseat that I realize that the car is still running. I will be turning the car off immediately from now on.
- Dropping off Kid #1. Again, I don't think to turn the car off immediately when we bring her to preschool in the mornings.
- Starting and going. I have a habit of starting the car before I am actually ready to move. Ths happens in grocery store parking lots often as I am often rearranging stuff in the front seats before moving.
I will still be idling at stop lights for fear of getting beat up if I dared to turn off the engine.
IDLING FACTS:
Two minutes of idling wastes about as much gas as one mile of travel. The problem is that with idling, you aren't going anywhere. The only thing that you are doing is releasing an bunch of carbon dioxide into the air and melting ice caps (or something like that). There is the common misconception that turning off your car and restarting it uses more gas and causes more wear on the engine than idling for a couple of minutes. This is false. The truth is that idling for over ten seconds uses more gas that restarting the car. A good rule to go by is if you will be idling for more than 30 seconds, turn it off.
Join me this month, won't you? Leave a comment and let my know what your bad idling habits are.
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