Idling
2. Turn Off Your Car
The next time you find yourself idling your car for any longer than 2 minutes, in a long traffic jam, construction site, border line up, or just waiting for someone, cut your engine! While you’re at it, try using your car one less day per week too. With a little planning, we can all use our cars less and save both money and carbon emissions. You will save costs not only in fuel, but also in fewer trips to the gas station. And as the price of fuel rises, you’ll benefit right away!
The average Canadian idles their car for between 5 and 10 minutes a day.(source) I decide to watch the other morning as people waited in the drive thru line up. As I walked in I timed the last car in line. It took that car 6 minutes of idling to get through the line (I had to wait to finish my timing). From the same website it takes approximately 0.2 litres (.05 gallons) of gas for every 10 minutes of idling. The approximately is because it will differ depending on your engine. So over a year not idling your car will save you 73 litres or 19.28 gallons of gas. That works out to between $70 and $110 and rising depending on what you are paying for gas right now. On the carbon dioxide front each gallon of gas your car uses equals 20 lbs of carbon dioxide(source). So by not idling your car 10 minutes a day means a pound of CO2 saved. Over a year that eliminating that idling would save 385 lbs. One million people taking action and avoiding idling 10 minutes a day will result in saving 73 million litres or 19.28 million gallons of gas. That equates to saving almost 175,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
10 minutes less idling per day for a year saves
1 Action
- 385 Lbs of carbon dioxide which takes 8 trees one year to absorb.
- $70 – $110
- 19.28 gallons 73 litres
1 Million Actions
- 175,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide which takes 8 million trees a year to absorb
- 19.28 million gallons 73 million litres
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Comment by Josh Maxwell — Sunday, July 27, 2008 @ 9:38 pm