Prius or Jetta: Which is Greener?

Hey Mr. Green,

I need to buy a new vehicle soon and am deciding between a 2010 Prius and the Volkswagen Jetta TDI Diesel Sedan, which just won Green Car Journal’s Green Car of the Year award. In your opinion, which car is better for the environment?

–Jonathan in Racine, Wisconsin

If you’re looking at the 2009 models, the Prius’s total carbon dioxide emissions are 4 tons per year, compared to 6.2 for a six-speed manual VW Jetta diesel according to the EPA. These numbers assume 15,000 miles per year, 45 percent in the city, 55 on the highway. The Prius also gets a better overall air-pollution score, because there are still some problems with diesel emissions, though the Volkswagen has made great strides in solving these. 

Regarding 2010 models, the EPA has not yet listed ratings for the Jetta but puts the Prius at a combined city/highway rate 50 miles per gallon, and only 3.7 tons of carbon emissions. I hope the Jetta will come close to that. So keep an eye on the EPA ratings at this link for the latest comparison; the site also lets you recalibrate these basic numbers to your personal auto use. For example, the Prius gets better mileage in town than on the highway, whereas the Jetta does better on the highway. So if most of your driving is on the open road, the Jetta could be a better choice. To find out more about how green any vehicle is, look at the EPA’s information at this link.

Granted, there’s been a lot of buzz about the Jetta because one guy got more 58 mpg driving a Jetta around the country, and some others have beaten the EPA rating. But unless you’re one of these “hypermilers” whose driving practices are enormously prudent, you probably won’t match this.

OK, I already hear howls of protest from people who don’t trust the EPA ratings because their cars go a lot better or worse than EPA claims they should. There are even some conspiracy theorists convinced that the EPA is plotting with some car makers to bestow favorable or unfavorable ratings.  But it’s more likely that the disparities result because the drivers of several hundred million cars in this country consist of both hyper- and hypo-milers. The hypos get rotten mileage mainly because they 1) drive too fast, 2) idle their engines excessively, and 3) neglect basic maintenance, like keeping tires properly inflated. All these can make a big difference in fuel consumption. Obviously, we should all strive to be hypermilers, and there are plenty of how-to-hyper ideas online.

My own experience suggests that bad driving explains much of the failure to match EPA ratings.  I haven't owned a car in years, but I do rent them. The various vehicles I've driven over these years have usually equaled or exceeded the EPA’s ratings (when I prorate their performance to account for disgraceful speeding, they still meet the standard). Admittedly, this is not a controlled experiment, but it does suggest that the disparity between rating and reality lies not with the EPA, but with ourselves.

Don’t Smash That Thermostat!

Sometimes Mr. Green gets a rant worth quoting at length, especially if it reinforces his own skepticism about substituting technology for common sense. Here goes:

Hey Mr. Green,

You recently mentioned various energy–conservation projects, one being to install a programmable thermostat. Well, yes, they may work for some people, but the one we had was without a doubt the sorriest piece of electrical equipment ever to deface an innocent wall.

Our coldest and most miserable winter in more than 50 years was caused by that savage little monstrosity in the downsized house we moved into. Being retired, we aren't robots on a rigid schedule, and didn't need any fool computer telling us when to turn on the furnace. However, instructions in hand, we humored that idiotic device, trying to move it down from 72º to a more reasonable, lower figure in winter, but it popped right back up. Nothing we did to this instrument of the devil, this Rasputin, or maybe Cheney, would help. We ended up turning it on when the house got cold and shutting it off when it warmed up. A pair of bare wires and a clothespin would have accomplished the same thing.

Finally we bought a real thermostat like the one we had in our other house for 40 years. All we have to do is rotate it one way to warm up the place, and turn it the other way to cool it down—the very epitome of simplicity and efficiency. No goofy buttons, no failed attempts to coordinate time and temperature, and no waste of natural gas.

So, after our experience, whenever someone comes around with "programmable thermostat" I start thinking of getting out my heaviest hammer and gleefully smashing that electronic monstrosity to bits.

–Tom (location undisclosed)

Tom, I share your antagonism toward gadgetry, but millions of folks are so “distracted from distraction by distraction,” as T.S. Eliot put it long ago, that they simply can’t focus on mundane tasks like adjusting the thermostat. It was mainly for these unfortunate victims of the economic system and the false gods of digital technology that I prescribed the programmable thermostat. Personally, I consider these and many other energy gadgets to be the moral equivalent of overmedication. If you live sensibly, you won’t need most of those remedies advertised on TV to keep your bladder happy and your legs from involuntary twitching.

But don’t go gleefully hammering your old thermostat—or any used thermostat. Recycling well is your best revenge. Find out where to do so by contacting your local waste-management authorities or locate nearest thermostat recycler at earth911.com.

And if you know anybody who has one of those older thermostats that might contain mercury, implore them not to smash or discard the device, but recycle it. Last year 1,300 pound of toxic mercury were contained by the recycling of 100,000 old thermostats.

People who still get their knickers in a knot about the minute amount of mercury in fluorescent lightbulbs should note: Those 100,000 thermostats contain as much of the toxic metal as 118 million fluorescent bulbs, or a roughly a bulb for every U.S. household.

Numbers to Get Others on the Bandwagon

Hey Mr. Green,

If you carpool to work, recycle and compost, ride a bike often instead of taking a car, turn off lights and electronic devices, don’t leave the water running when brushing your teeth, use reusable cups and plates instead of disposable ones, buy local organic products, and buy energy-efficient appliances, how do you tally that in trees saved or wildlife saved? I need to show the employees at my organization how much a few small actions can change the world for the better. I would like to use figures or stats to do so. Can you help?

–Ellen in Denver, Colorado

That’s a mighty tall and comprehensive order, but here goes: Regarding trees and paper, each person in the United States uses around 660 pounds of paper a year. Assuming the oft-cited 17 trees per ton of paper, this translates into about 1.2 billion trees that could be saved if everybody recycled. Of course, a lot of trees are already being saved because 57 percent of paper is already being recycled.
To be fair, I should point out that there are contrarians who claim recycling actually reduces the total number of trees because it increases paper supply, thereby reducing the economic incentive to plant more trees for pulp.

Regarding energy reduction, the average per-capita carbon dioxide emission in the United States is more than 20 tons per year. If your colleagues cut their energy use in half, which is easily doable by following your advice, they would make a huge reduction in this dreary exhalation, this sigh of a tired and clueless economy. Take the example of cars alone. We now burn about 140 billion gallons of gasoline in our cars per year. If everybody cut their automobile use in half by carpooling and biking, that’s at least 70 billion gallons saved, or 700 million carbon tons kept out of the air.

They’d also save a lot of money. The average car goes about 12,000 miles per year. If it gets 25 miles per gallon, that’s $1,440 at $3 per gallon. If people can get by without a car, they save much, much more, from $5,500 to $9,100 per year, since the cost of owning and operating a vehicle is 55 cents per mile for a small sedan driven 10,000 miles, and 91 cents a mile for an four-wheel-drive SUV.

The number of trees and creatures saved from this reduction is hard to determine, since we don’t yet know what effect global warming will have on populations of flora and fauna. But it sure would cut roadkill rates in half, which by some estimates nails about 1 million deer, 1 million small mammals, and probably many more birds than that (I can’t comment on reptile-and-amphibian mashing, as these are underrepresented in our mammal-centric studies.) Maybe the animal-rights guys should lay off the hunters and focus their efforts on Bambi-slamming cars instead.

As for buying organic, that will obviously reduce pollution because organic products don’t use chemical poisons or fertilizers. This is a very welcome development for wildlife, though it’s hard to get an estimate on how much of it would be saved by detoxifying our agriculture. But when you consider that hundreds of millions of pounds of pesticides are dumped on corn and soybeans alone, and that organic farming reduces this to zero, the benefits are obvious.

Generally speaking, buying local reduces the energy involved in shipping food long distances, but this is very difficult to quantify because of differences in the efficiency of local farmers’ vehicles and the amount they haul per trip. But in many cases, it probably takes less energy to move a tomato 20 miles instead of 2,000.

Should I buy a Prius?

Hey Mr. Green,

I keep hearing hype about how hybrid cars are so much better for the environment, yet I also hear that the process to make the batteries for them is very toxic. If so, the Toyota Prius isn't a very green car, so I won't be wasting the extra cash to damage the planet. Is this a wise choice?

--Jacque in Missoula, Montana

The fuss about Prius batteries is because they're made of nickel. Thirty years ago, Canada's nickel-mining industry was particularly toxic, but our northerly neighbors have since cleaned up their mining mess. Only a fraction of the world's nickel is used for batteries, and those made for Priuses (Prii?) are recyclable. For a fuller refutation of this and other myths about the Prius, go to tinyurl.com/mrgreenprius.

However, don't rush out to buy a $22,000 Prius unless you have unlimited funds. You might net greater energy savings by purchasing a cheaper but still-efficient car--like a Toyota Yaris--and investing the money you save in less-sexy energy-conservation measures like replacing your furnace, upgrading your insulation, and installing fluorescent lights, programmable thermostats, an Energy Star fridge, and so on. Sure, the furnace and insulation won't sit in your driveway and flaunt your environmental rectitude. But they could reduce more emissions and save more money in the long run. Consider your energy habits and where you live, and do a basic energy inventory using some simple math.

Say you drive 10,000 miles per year, mostly on the highway. The Prius is rated at 45 miles per gallon (highway), so it'll burn 222 gallons a year. If gas is $2 per gallon, you'll pay $444 per year for fuel. The efficient little Yaris gets 35 mpg, so it'll burn 286 gallons annually, costing you $572. The Prius, then, will save 64 gallons and $128 per year and emit 1,250 fewer pounds of carbon dioxide. But its base price is almost ten grand more than the Yaris.

By choosing the Yaris over the Prius, you'll have an extra $10,000 to spend on planet-preserving home upgrades that will save more energy than the Prius. Of course, if your home energy use is far less than average but you drive far more--or if gas prices climb back to the $5-per-gallon range--the equation changes.

What To Do With Old Meds

Hey Mr. Green,

What's the best way to deal with leftover prescription medications?

--Paul in Delmar, New York

Dispose of unused medications in your trash can rather than flushing them down the toilet or sink. Sewage-treatment plants can't remove all chemicals, and when pharmaceuticals are in the outflow (whether dumped in whole or after they've passed through the body), they harm marine life. Male fish, for example, are becoming female because of drug contaminants in waterways.

Researchers in Colorado, to cite one instance, found characteristics of both sexes in many individual white suckers; in Boulder Creek, females outnumbered males five to one, and half the males also had female organs--not because of willing transgender tendencies, but because of hormones in the water.

To be hypercautious, or if your neighbors are dope fiends who'll rummage through trash and ingest any meds they find, follow these procedures recommended by the EPA: (1) Keep medicine in its original container, scratching out the patient's name. (2) Check whether your community offers a prescription-drug disposal program--many do. (3) Before discarding them, modify drugs to discourage consumption by adding a small amount of liquid to pills, and adding salt, charcoal, or spices to liquids. (4) Seal the container shut with strong tape. (5) Place it in a nontransparent bag (don't hide it in food products). (6) Discard it as close to the scheduled garbage pickup time as possible.

Child's Play

Hey Mr. Green,

Is it better to drive my minivan to a playground or to buy a swing set?

–Purvika in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey

This is hardly the most urgent environmental question of our times, but such questions are fun to answer, and give Mr. Green a pretext for pontificating about larger issues.

Obviously, there is a mind-boggling set of variables involved here: how far you have to drive to the park, what mileage the minivan gets, the size and material of the swing set, the distance it is shipped, and every other conceivable impact. Pursuing this down to the last kilowatt and drop of water and microparticle of grime can lead to madness. As one agricultural wit asked, "When we assess the environmental impact of growing soybeans, do we have to include the soap and water used in the farmer's shower?"

But since energy use seems to be your main concern, let's focus on comparing how much is needed to make the swing as compared to the energy required to drive your darling(s) to the park. Assuming that you'll survive the current economic collapse and have a yard in which to plant a swing, you could spring for a steel three-seater that weighs 190 pounds or so. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, it takes 16,366,000 British thermal units (Btus) to make a ton of steel. So making almost all of the swing would require 1,554,770 Btus. The typical minivan gets 17 miles per gallon in the city, according to the EPA. Gasoline can contain up to 125,000 Btus per gallon. Therefore, the minimum energy needed to drive the minivan about 220 miles would equal the energy it took to make the swing. If you live only a mile from the park, in just 110 visits—twice a week for a year—you'd burn as much energy as it took to make the steel in the swing set. Of course, if you drive farther and settle for a lighter, smaller swing, the energy disadvantage of the minivan increases proportionately.

But if you're only a mile away from the park, why drive there anyhow? Make ‘em walk or bike. It builds character and helps shed the kid blubber that's getting so much attention nowadays. "But it takes too much time to walk or bike!" I already hear the howls of protest. Well, does it really, when you consider how much time it takes to strap in a kid or two, wend your way through gridlock, find parking, unload, reload, and unload again, not to mention the hours you'll have to work to pay the 54-cent-a-mile cost of owning and operating the average vehicle? Hidden behind the automobile's smiling grill of comfort and convenience are some troubling hassles and expenses.

Should the Sierra Club Be Befriending Unions?

Hey Mr. Green,

Since when did the Sierra Club start taking up union issues? My yearly dues say, “Stick to the environment," but I recently got a message from the Club urging me to support the Employee Free Choice Act.

–Paul in Richmond, California

The Sierra Club's position on the Employee Free Choice Act is based on the need to build green alliances and coalitions to promote a green economy. Many unions have been strong advocates for safety standards to protect their members from toxic substances and pollutants. In these industrial situations, the health of a union's workers coincides exactly with the goals of the environmental movement. Moreover, the growth of a green economy will be much stronger if it offers well-paid, safe jobs that union protection can provide.

The Employee Free Choice Act would allow employees to choose to unionize a workplace by simply by signing cards rather than going through an election process. It’s well-known that employers can intimidate or even fire pro-union workers during elections to decide on unionization, causing unions to lose. This is why Free Choice legislation is so important to labor. Seems to me that's not asking for much.

Alliance with unions is not something new for the Sierra Club. In the early 1990s, for example, the Club (and some other major environmental groups) allied with labor in opposing the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA). They rightly predicted that outsourcing jobs to countries with weak environmental laws would amount to outsourcing pollution.

More recently, the Club has been joining with unions like the steelworkers in the Apollo Alliance, which is pushing for major government support of clean energy. In advocating for green projects, the unions have common cause with environmentalists because it in the unions' interest to create jobs in this area. (The mere fact that installing alternative-energy equipment can't be outsourced is something both groups can take comfort in.)

Beyond these specific issues, because the unions generally support pro-environmental political candidates, stronger unions generally promote stronger environmental policies. The depressing rise of anti-environmental policies since the Reagan administration is, in my opinion, related to the decline in union membership. In the mid-1950s, 35 percent of the workforce was unionized. By 1983 it had dropped to 20 percent, and now stands at 12 percent. It's also likely that erosion of union membership is one of the causes the oft-bemoaned demise of the middle class. What this means for the green economy is simply that the typical homeowner has less to spend on green technologies.

Having said all this, I'm realistic enough to understand that tree-huggers and construction workers aren’t gonna be smooching inside the cabins of earth-moving machines any time soon. Environmental interests can crash head-on with union interests, as, for example, when construction unions push for development and road-building that environmentalists oppose, or when autoworkers were as gung-ho for producing gas-guzzling SUVs as their bosses were. Such differences are bound to occur because the unions' foremost concern is jobs and income for their members. But even where there is serious discord, if environmentalists move closer to unions, they will be in a much better position to enlist union backing for green projects. Despite inevitable clashes between environmentalists and unions, in the long run, stronger unions will beget stronger environmental policies.

A Corny Question

Hey Mr. Green,

In an attempt to be greener, the company I work for switched the fleet vehicle to the Chevy Impala which has the FleFuel E85 capability.  However, I know that corn-based ethanol is not the ideal alternative, since it dumps carbon dioxide into the air during productions, and gets fewer miles to the gallon. Is E85 for the fleet vehicle any greener? Or should I still fill up with regular unleaded?

–Roy in Sisters, Oregon

I remain quite skeptical about corn ethanol, which some environmentalists still consider a superior biofuel alternative. In our rush for energy sources that’ll reduce global warming, we seem to be forgetting about other environmental issues, like wildlife habitat, water pollution, depletion by irrigation, soil erosion, and so forth. Depending on where it’s being grown, corn can cause all these problems. Aside from the moral dilemma of using corn as fuel, I'm not convinced that there’s any net benefit to the environment in ethanol.

Corn is one of the most magnificent and productive plants. But raising too much of it in the wrong places can turn it into one of the most destructive. Having grown up on a hybrid corn farm right next to a corn-processing company, and having worked every summer of my youth in test plots with dedicated corn breeders, my awe of the species is so intense that its misuse seems like downright sacrilege. It's perfectly easy for anybody who has experienced the power and glory of maize to understand why its Aztec cultivators worshiped a goddess of corn.

Theology aside, increasing use of ethanol is bound to raise demand for corn, the hyper-cultivation of which already poses environmental problems exposed by many scientific observers. In the past 20 years, U.S. corn acreage increased from less than 70 million acres, and spiked at almost 94 million in 2007, though it’s dropped down to about 85 million, partly because of lower market prices. If demand or other factors such as weather drive up prices, that acreage could expand.

Mr. Green Exorcises His Vampires

The cleanest, quickest, and cheapest way to fight global warming and save energy is simply to use less. I've harped about this constantly, noting, for example, that folks like the Germans and Italians consume roughly half the electricity we Americans do. I'd managed to cut electricity use in my house in California down to 3,200 kilowatt hours a year, half the annual California average of 6,960 kWh, and way less than a third of the national average of 11,232. Mr. Green, of all people, dare not be caught with a stupendous utility bill like Al Gore was a few years ago.

Among the many suggestions I've given for painlessly cutting energy use is to shut off or disconnect computers, chargers, and other electronic devices, including those in standby mode. Yet, let it be noted that not until this April did I began to systematically turn off power strips that were feeding standby devices and chargers in our house. The results proved instructive, yielding a 25 percent reduction from last year's April consumption. Happily, our standard of living didn’t drop by 25 percent because we had to wait five seconds for the idiot box to glow and vibrate with the sounds of reruns or somber reports about global warming. All we had plugged in were a DVD, a CD, a TV, a phone charger, two computer chargers, and a printer. Yet these alone were wasting 2 kWh per day.

The reduction in our house tallied with one study that found that the average Northern California home has 67 watts of standby capacity, with the highest at 169 watts. This means that if you're at the high end of standby use, you could waste 4 kilowatts in just a day. That would cost anywhere from $90 to $370 per year or even more, depending on electricity prices where you live. So make sure your house isn't lurking with vampire-like gadgets.

Bed Bugs Keeping You Awake?

Hey Mr. Green,

How can I effectively cope with bed bugs in as green a way possible – if that’s even possible, given how difficult they are to treat in the first place. What is most frustrating is that many of my low-impact strategies aren't working because I live in a small studio apartment and my bed is near, well, everything, including all of my reuseable cloth bags, napkins, and towels.

Anyhow, all of these wonderful items which made a low impact are out the window right now due to these critters. Now my life is being lived out of plastic tubs and countless plastic bags until I am declared bug-free and can revert back to my low-impact ways again. Help?

–Victoria in Brooklyn, New York

If anybody still doubts the bed-bug resurgence, they missed the big news about the EPA's Bed Bug Summit, where public-health people and entomologists gathered to strategize about curbing the latest arthropodic vampire menace.

As far as I can tell, no single low-impact method exists to cope with these tormentors. You have to rely on an ensemble of measures to combat the bloodsuckers, whose American renaissance has resulted from their sneaking in on international travelers and luggage, our reluctance to use toxic pesticides, and their growing resistance to any pesticide.

It seems that you’ve already taken some measures to contain them by sealing up objects in which they can hide. They live in any clutter or tiny crack, so the first line of defense is a very thorough cleaning, not just of beds and bedding, but of anything that might be infested. Seal all crevices where they might lurk, down to cracks in the wall. The creatures can't fly, but they do crawl out for their gruesome meals. (University of Kentucky bed-bug authority Michael Potter says they "feed by piercing the skin with an elongated beak through which they withdraw blood. Engorgement takes about three to 10 minutes." And they don't merely pierce and suck, but inject an anticoagulant to facilitate the process.

Go over box springs, beds, and couches, inside and out. They also live inside and under furniture, at the edges of wall-to-wall carpeting, behind headboards, picture frames, mirrors, and switch plates and outlets. They can even take up residence inside electronic equipment.