Still Using a Fuel Car? Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with These Tips
Posted by admin at 14 September 2021, at 10 : 38 AM
Electric cars have become more popular in recent years and are becoming more mainstream. The global car sales of electric vehicles in 2019 totaled 2.1 million. Those who can afford electric vehicles or EVs are shifting to them from their gas-powered cars. The most common reasons for this action include EVs being more environment-friendly and economically practical in the long term.
But not everyone can get an electric car even if they want their mode of transportation to be more environment-friendly. Perhaps they don’t have the budget to get an EV to replace their gas-powered car. Or their local areas are not yet prepared for EVs due to the lack of charging stations.
Nonetheless, it may take extra effort, but owners of gas-powered can still do their part in preserving the environment by reducing their vehicles’ carbon footprints as much as possible.
How to Reduce Your Fuel Car’s Carbon Footprint
Drive Carefully
The simplest way to reduce your carbon footprint is to drive carefully. Maintain a steady speed when you drive and accelerate gently to save on gas. It will also be wise to avoid speeding and stick to the maximum speed limit.
Reckless driving and speeding can cause your vehicle to decrease its gas mileage by 15 percent to 30 percent, which means that your car won’t be running efficiently. Of course, apart from efficiency, driving carefully will ensure your and your passengers’ safety on the road.
Combine Errands
Unsurprisingly, one of the ways to reduce your fuel car’s carbon footprint is by driving it less. This might seem odd, given that you purchased the car so that you can drive it around when you need to. But it’s a little sacrifice to save the environment.
You can drive your car less often by combining your errands. Schedule similar errands on the same day, especially if the places you need to go to are near each other. This will be tiring but worth it for the sake of the environment.
Take a Filipino immigrant as an example. To save on gas and avoid several times a week, the immigrant chooses to do everything they need to do on a Saturday. They first go to a pharmacy to fill up their prescription medicines, dropped by a local logistics company to drop off a parcel for air shipment to the Philippines, and then go straight to the grocery store to buy essentials.
Choose Car pooling over Solo Driving
The transportation industry is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions annually. In the U.S., 76 percent of Americans drive to work alone every day. This contributes a huge amount to America’s consumption of about 123 billion gallons of motor gasoline in 2020.
You can help reduce this fuel usage by choosing to carpool over solo driving. If you have a coworker living around your area, you can talk to them and ask if they’d be willing to do a carpool rotation with you. Don’t forget to follow the recommended precautions when carpooling, such as wearing face masks, proper hygiene, and opening the windows for better ventilation, to reduce your and your coworker’s COVID-19 risk.
Car pooling to work will benefit both of you since you get to save money and reduce your carbon footprint collectively. It’s also not bad to have company on your way to work.
Maintain Your Car
Car maintenance is important. If you want to save the environment despite using a fuel-powered car, you need to take it to regular check-ups to ensure that it’s running in its best condition. Doing so will prolong your vehicle’s life. Also, keeping your car in its tip-top shape means you’ll need fewer repairs. This means you decrease the likelihood of discarding parts of your vehicle for replacements.
Also, with simple maintenance fixes, you will keep your car’s pipes clean. So your vehicle won’t emit black smoke or have oil leaks, both of which pollute roads.
Electric Vehicles Are the Future
For now, gas-powered cars still dominate the mainstream automotive industry. But the future is bright for electric cars. Bloomberg estimated that by 2030, EVs would take up 20 percent of new car sales.
The world is in a time-crunch to reverse the effects of climate change. And using EVs over fuel-powered cars will help since EVs generally emit fewer greenhouse emissions.
But for now, if you can’t shift to an EV, you can do your part in decreasing your carbon footprint by being a responsible car owner. Take fewer trips by combining your errands, carpool instead of driving alone, drive safely, and maintain your vehicle.