Many thoughts about identity, Judaism, teaching, meditation, travel, parenting and more

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Pesach as an Environmental Hazard

So over Pesach:

-I doubled the amount of recycling I normally put out. Better than garbage but not as good as producing less waste.
-I covered the stove with foil.
-I covered the counters and shelves with contact paper... some of which will be nice to have year-round.
-I got new plastic bags at the store.
-I ate way more meat than usual.
-I used a little bit of disposable stuff, though very little still. At least I kept to paper or compostables and avoided plastic or styrofoam.

I want to offset it. I was thinking of finally doing something I've been afraid of... printing out a fact sheet of the problems of idling cars that I could slip under windshield wipers of idling cars with no one around. Would that be acceptable or not? I already have a reputation as being green. Shouldn't I use it for something instead of being embarrassed when attention is called to my leanings?

You know, as I typed this entry and found the fact sheet linked above, I feel encouraged to do it!

2 Comments:

Blogger Alissa said...

Oh, gosh, do it! And do it when drivers are around, too - hand the driver a flyer. Did the "no idling" law in Vancouver go into effect before or after you left? It was surprisingly effective, and the public education campaign was great. I was trying to google some information about it, but, ironically, I could only find what an organization in Oregon came up with ;)
Here's the flyer they handed out:
http://www.nrpe.org/profiles/VI_A_4_a_info_card_final.pdf

And here's the website:
http://www.nrpe.org/profiles/profiles_vi_A_4.htm

Maybe you could encourage your school to put up a street sign asking parents to turn off their cars while dropping off/picking up their children. Perhaps get a group of people to get all the schools to put up such signs. Then hit the city up to get people to stop idling outside of buildings.

Somewhere out there, someone did a story about how he tested his gas consumption to see if it made a difference turning off his car at stoplights and curbside. He found a significance difference. It might have been in the Vancouver Sun? So perhaps using the angle of peoples' pocketbooks would work?

Anyway, I'm a huge fan of "stop idle" especially since it's rampant here in Israel - people will seriously leave their cars idling for AN HOUR to keep the a/c running. It's truly sad. I can't turn off the car we have now at traffic lights, because the alarm turns on! If I'm like, 10th in line and I know I'll have enough time to disengage the alarm, I'll do it, though.

You'd think, at approximately $7/gallon for gas, no one would be idling here. Good luck!!!

1:29 PM

 
Blogger Melissa said...

do what feels right for you! i recycle other people's trash when i see that they're throwing out something recyclable. every little bit helps!

11:56 PM

 

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