Thoroughly Exhausted by Smog Test

Hey Mr. Green,

I just waited in line at the DMV to get my car's emissions tested. It took about 20 minutes. Plus, the closest inspection site was 15 miles from my house. As we sat there idle and idling, I wondered whether it wouldn't be better for the air just to eliminate the emissions inspections. Now that most cars are relatively cleaner than they were back in the '70s, how many polluting cars do these inspections take off the road each year, compared to the impact of having every car in the state drive to an inspection station and sit idling for 20 minutes?

–Allen in Potomac, Maryland

First, I hope you weren’t idling while you were in the line, and that you are referring to the idling that was done while the car was being tested. As I’ve noted before, idling is a no-no.

I haven’t been able to determine the national total flunked clunkers taken off the road because of smog tests, but it’s clearly substantial. In California, for example, from 2000 to 2003, more than 20,000 vehicles that failed tests were officially retired in buyback programs. The actual number taken off the road had to have been far greater, because this figure only represents owners who actually bothered to go through the rather bureaucratic buyback process.

Yes, huge progress has been made in cutting air pollution from cars. Thanks to EPA rules, a big drop in deadly emissions occurred between 1970 and 1997, and they’re being further decreased by the implementation of new restrictions set during the Clinton administration. We can all breathe easier, literally, because the coalition of the greedy who wrecked our economy with deregulation schemes didn’t manage to kill our environmental rules—though some of their libertarian/free-market intellectual whores whipped up many specious arguments for doing precisely that.

But in wondering if the air is half-full or half-empty, keep in mind that the net reduction of auto pollution isn’t as great as may first appear. One reason, as I’ve noted before, is that we now have 115 million more cars and SUVs on the road than in 1970, and we drive them 2,400 miles farther each year, burning 40 billion more gallons of fuel in them. Therefore, many gains have been offset by the sheer increase in the number of vehicles. Yes, we succeeded in reducing dangerous small particles (soot, basically) by 75 percent, and we brought down some other nasty pollutants by more than 30 percent (though nitrogen oxide actually increased). The heftiest and certainly healthiest reduction of a serious poison came when the government flat-out banned lead additives from gasoline, which helped bring emissions from this brain-damaging heavy metal down from 220,000 tons to only 5,000 tons per year.

Finally, not only are there millions of clunkers still on the road that should be sent to recycling heaven, but even state-of-the-art pollution-control devices can and do fail, as can any technology. So all things considered, for the time being, I consider smog tests well worth the effort.

Green Weddings, No Nukes

Hey Mr. Green,

My longtime boyfriend has been saving up for a (conflict-free) engagement ring for a while now and I know The Question is coming soon. That said, for those of us looking at planning a wedding over the next year or so, what are some great green ideas that can turn this memorable day into an environmentally friendly event and maybe inspire some of the guests as well? Could you give some ideas that work for larger-budget weddings as well as some for those of us working on a grad student’s budget? Thanks!

–Cass in St. Paul, Minnesota

Thank you for rescuing me from the brink of madness, because I’ve been struggling for two days trying to figure out how much nuclear power really costs per kilowatt, whereas your question has already been nicely answered by one of our fine sister organizations, the World Wildlife Fund. WWF has a wonderful list of 16 ways to green your wedding. Among their suggestions are providing vanpools for out-of-town guests and choosing locally grown flowers.

If you really want to go for all-out environmental zeal, they even have a registry that can enable your guests donate to WWF in lieu of buying gifts. Imagine, instead of dumping unwanted presents, you can help save God’s beleaguered creatures.

And if you really want to dramatize, go ahead and wear a green wedding dress, have green frosting on the cake, make the officiant wear green, and give an environmentally cool door prize. But whatever you do, promise never, ever to ask how many kilowatts are contained in the average prolonged kiss.

Spay Me, Castrate Me, But Please Take Me Home

A while back, when I noted that cats should be kept indoors because they’re an invasive species that kills hundreds of millions of songbirds, some cat owners responded with claws bared. So I explained that I really do care for cats, citing the Humane Society’s findings that indoor cats live three to five times longer than free-roaming felines, who pay dearly for their so-called freedom, being flattened by cars, poisoned by toxic substances, getting whacked by a dog or other predator, catching other creatures’ diseases, or being kidnapped by some weirdo who tortures animals.

Among the scarier of those “other predators” is the coyote, according to a recent study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, called  “Observations of Coyote-Cat Interaction.” (You gotta love those marvelously dry academic titles.) It turned out that those “interactions” weren’t pretty. “We observed 36 coyote-cat interactions,” the authors note. “19 resulted in coyotes killing cats.” Another study found that cats comprise 13 percent of coyotes’ diet.

This sort of evidence casts more doubt on the practice of “Trap, Neuter, and Release,” which sounds more like a description of a failed marriage than a humane environmental practice. Recognizing the problem of feral cats, TNR programs, as their name would imply, catch cats, neuter them, and release them back into the wild in the hopes that the increase in sterile feral numbers will lead to a population decrease.

But it doesn’t really work that way, for various reasons, including the fact that people tend to dump cats when they know there’s a TNR program in place. And when TNR meets LICK (Let Indigenous Coyotes Kill), a gruesome comedy ensues, in which somebody’s gone through all the trouble of catching and neutering a cat only to turn it loose to be devoured. So trapping and neutering only makes sense if you take the cat home and keep it there.

For more about the cat problem, see the American Bird Conservancy’s Web site. The organization also has a short video, “Trap, Neuter, and Release: Bad for Cats, Disaster for Birds." Warning, though: Though this video is nowhere near as overtly gory as those nature programs where the King of the Beasts rips open some miserable hyena, it does feature songbird mangling that will offend some viewers.

A Styrofoam Quandary

Hey Mr. Green,

My wife and I try to minimize our purchases and we recycle or reuse everything possible (cardboard boxes, packing paper, and so on). But with Styrofoam, the trade name for expanded polystyrene (EPS), we’ve hit a wall. We don't have a local recycling program, and there is no local demand for this material. So we’re approaching critical mass because we won’t dispose of it until we can find an environmentally sound way to do so. There are mail-back programs that require packing up the EPS and mailing it to a manufacturer who does accept it. So I have two questions: 1) Does it make environmental sense to mail Styrofoam to manufacturers who will use it (I would consider the postage costs as an acceptable additional cost of purchases)? 2) Would it be safe, wise, and environmentally feasible to reuse EPS as attic insulation in its packing form?

–Name and location undisclosed

It makes some sense to ship Styrofoam peanuts to a recycler, or to drop it off at any local company (if you happen to be going near the place) that does lots of shipping and requires packing material. Unfortunately, consumers are recycling only about 3 percent of the good, clean packaging. It’s extremely difficult to recycle Styrofoam food containers because of contamination, which is why some cities have banned them. To find out where to send or drop off the loose peanut packaging, go to this link or call the Plastic Loose Fill Council’s “peanut hotline” at (800) 828-2214. For rigid package recycling, go to this link. Also check Earth911.

I'll spare you some of the math and boil it down to this: It takes about 45,000 British thermal units (Btus) to make a pound of Styrofoam, or about a third as much energy as in a gallon of diesel fuel, which has roughly 130,000 Btus per gallon. Since Styrofoam is very light, only 5 percent as heavy as water, it takes a lot of room. This light weight is what makes it such a fantastically efficient shipping material in the first place. A typical big rig semi can haul 60,000 pounds. Cram it with Styrofoam instead of, say, bottled water, and it can only haul 3,000 pounds max. So, at 45,000 Btus per pound, it took about 135,000,000 Btus to make that 3,000-pound load. Since diesel fuel contains 130,000 Btus, that's 135,000,000 / 130,000 = 1,038 gallons worth of diesel fuel in the load. Since a big rig gets around 5 miles per gallon (and obviously more when pulling a light load), recycling would yield a net gain in energy, unless the Styrofoam was being hauled 10,000 miles or so, which seems rather unlikely. If the haul is 500 miles, then it only takes 100 gallons of fuel for a load that took the equivalent of 960 gallons to make.

Of course, this is an oversimplified, best-case scenario, because 1) You probably can’t get 3,000 pounds on a load because of cavities, and 2) it doesn't account for the energy consumed at the recycling facility. But then again, if your Styrofoam were tossed in the garbage, energy would also be required to haul it to a landfill.

Regarding your question about reusing Styrofoam as insulation, as a dumpster-diving cheapskate scavenger, I’d love to be able recommend that, but even I can’t go that far. It’s combustible, and I would just hate to see your conscientious recycling efforts—and your house—go up in literal flames. Besides, sneaking it in between the ceiling joists would probably violate building codes. Granted, Styrofoam is a darn good insulator, as anybody knows who’s ever wrapped their hand around one of those stupid coffee cups that get tossed by the billions. In fact, it’s quite a bit better per inch of thickness than many other kinds of insulation, which is why they mold it into those sheets used for insulation. But these incarnations of Styrofoam are made fire-resistant, unlike those mysteriously sculpted white forms used to encase everything from pens to pendants to pistols.

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.