Are You An Idler?

It’s day 16 in a month of Easy Eco Tips, how are you doing so far? Have you made some changes? Have you tried something new?

Great! Then let’s get to today’s Easy Eco Idea, don’t let you car idle.

We’ve all done it, gone outside 10 minutes before we have to leave and turned the car on so it can warm up, or kept the car on while we wait for the kids to get out of school.

An idling car emits twice the emissions of a moving car. Americans go through about 3.8 billion gallons of gas every day just idling their cars, that’s about $8 million of wasted gas.

Just 10 seconds of idling can use more fuel then restarting your engine, so if you're going to be stopped for more than that, turn the car off.

Just think of all those fumes being kicked out and all those kids walking by while you’ve got your car on.

The same goes for traffic jams. If it’s really bad and you’re not moving at all, just turn your car off. It only takes a moment to turn it back on and you’ll have plenty of time to get it started before you start moving again.

Another big idling stop is drive through windows. It may take a minute or two longer to go inside and seem a lot less convenient, but the environmental impact of all that idling is a whole lot less convenient in the end.

The fastest way to warm up your car is to just drive it, that really does do it better then letting it warm up. But if you’re still worried about it being cold in the car keep a blanket in there. If you have to wait for your kids to get out while it’s hot park in the shade and roll all the windows down instead of keeping the A/C on.

So stop idling for you, the planet and the kids.