To the Editor,
I appreciated the recent article titled Earth Month Tips for a Sustainable Home by Ross Jacobs, including tips for how we can all reduce plastic pollution by making small changes in our homes. However, the article ignored the biggest single contributor to pollution in our homes: the cars in our garages/driveways. Passenger vehicles account for almost one third of the U.S. contribution to greenhouse gas. This includes electric vehicles, which are on average 40% heavier than gas vehicles and therefore wear out tires, brakes, and roads much faster (not to mention more frequently killing people on foot and bike). This may sound small, but tire pollution makes up as much as 28% of the microplastics in our oceans.
While the federal government continues to incentivize automakers to build bigger and bigger cars, there are things we can do at an individual and community level to decrease our transportation footprint. We can drive smaller (buy a sedan instead of an SUV) and drive less (walk or bike for neighborhood errands). We can carpool, bike, or use transit for daily commutes. And we can encourage our city leaders to build more safe bike and pedestrian infrastructure to encourage alternate modes. In the “reduce, reuse, and recycle” mantra for protecting Earth, “reduce” is the most important part when it comes to cars. Our planet can’t wait.
Ruth Link-Gelles
