Turn off engine, help environment

Here is a very simple tip to help the environment, improve people’s health and save money: Turn your vehicle’s engine OFF anytime it is not in motion.

It has been shown in studies that more fuel is used in 10 seconds of idling than it takes to restart your car. It is harder on the exhaust system, cylinders and spark plugs to idle.

Harold Whitaker, of Sam Leman Chrysler, says “the extra heat from idling the engine is a main culprit.” 

Most people idle their cars from force of habit, not because they consciously mean to do it. For example, people idle their vehicles when banking from the car, picking up a prescription at the drive through pharmacy, moving slowly forward to the fast food window and picking up and dropping off children at school. We all need to make a conscious effort to turn off the ignition if we are going to sit for longer than 10 seconds. 

If we all remembered to stop idling, we could improve people’s health. Studies have confirmed that exhaust from vehicles can cause more asthma problems and increase the severity of breathing-related attacks. The carbon monoxide in exhaust poisons people, slows reflexes and causes dizziness.

Nitrous oxide emissions in the exhaust cause the formation of ground level ozone and fine particulate pollution, both of which inhibit lung function.

Finally, more global warming climate change CO2 is put into the air when we idle. It has been verified that more pollutants are emitted while a car is idling than when it is in motion. This is because the fuel is burned incompletely. A car that sits and idles for 20 minutes can give off the same amount of pollution as when it is driven 300 miles. In larger cities, for example, Chicago and its suburbs, a 2007 study by the Clean Air Task

Force said that diesel exhaust alone accounts for 1,000 nonfatal heart attacks, 750 premature deaths and 17,000 asthma attacks per year. A Harvard Study shows us that anti-idling policies have increased life expectancy in big cities by five months. Idling’s health effects from pollution is especially dangerous to children because children are closer to the ground where exhaust fumes settle and because youngsters breathe more air as a percentage of body weight into their still developing lungs.

Many trucking companies have installed a system in their daycabs (semi’s) that automatically shuts off the engine after five minutes of idling. They did this because they had found that many of their trucks had been idling for one third of their total running time. This was a huge environmental issue as well as being very costly to the companies in fuel and maintenance.

There are laws limiting the amount of idling in cities, such as Chicago and Minneapolis, Minn. Even our neighboring city of Normal has an anti-idling policy. In Minneapolis, there is a limit of three consecutive minutes of idling for cars and five minutes for diesel buses and trucks.

Naturally, there are many exceptions to these rules, such as emergency vehicles, engine repair diagnosis and traffic tie ups even for vehicles that cannot be restarted when they are turned off because of mechanical problems.

These rules hold true for city employees, staff, and maintenance workers, as well as citizens like you and me. I urge the city of East Peoria to complete the anti-idling policy they have been formulating for some time and have city workers stick to it. A strong anti-idling policy for city employees would be beneficial to the health of East Peorians.

It would also save the city some money on fuel costs as well as repair and replacement of vehicles. As an environmentalist and someone who hates to waste money, I already reach for the ignition key if I think I will be waiting in my car for 10 seconds or longer. Let’s all try to do the same.

If you are interested in green issues in your community and would like to join the East Peoria Green Team, contact Bob Jorgensen at 698-0325, or at jestpr@aol.com.