Used Car Dealers Help You Shrink Your Carbon Footprint

 


It's finally happened: being "green" has actually become the trendy and cool thing to do! While this is great news for the environment, it also means we all need to get clear on how to actually do it. As it turns out, there is no small amount of confusion when it comes to things like what kind of vehicle is the most environmentally friendly option. Maybe you've even asked yourself this question: is it better to stop in to see your local used car dealers or to buy some fancy new "green" machine?

Manufacturing Versus Recycling

Most people nowadays have become accustomed to recycling things like glass, paper, and plastic. It makes sense, after all, to re-use such things rather than send them to landfill while still creating yet more of the same waste products all over again. Well, the same is true for vehicles. Think of everything that goes into fabricating a new auto and of all the materials required - the metal, plastic, electrical circuitry, and more - and the difficulty of disposing of all of that in a responsible fashion. Clearly, it makes sense to try to maintain a roadworthy vehicle for as long as possible. Studies have actually shown that between 12 and 28 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions generated over the entire "life" of a typical vehicle are emitted during manufacturing, before it even takes to the streets! But when it comes to manufacturing hybrids, that process has an even higher environmental impact - about twice as much as manufacturing a regular vehicle. Buying a used car is the clear winner of this round - mobile roadworthy.

Electricity Versus Gasoline

This one seems obvious at first glance. Surely the fact that a new, high-tech hybrid runs on an electrical charge means that it is cleaner and greener, right? Well, no actually. If you look a little closer, you'll find that the reality doesn't live up to the hype. Today, the majority of the world's electrical energy still comes from steam turbine generators that run on fossil fuels, so most of the electricity required to charge the electric car batteries stems from the same fossil-fuel-consuming power plants as everything else. Until the energy itself is produced in a green way, running an electric vehicle still creates carbon emissions. When you factor in the heavy environmental impact of manufacture, as explained above, and the mining of lithium for the vehicle batteries, it seems that visiting used car dealers for a vehicle that gets good gas mileage is again the better option.

 

 

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