Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Eco-Driveways and the Big Stopper


Franke James has a great site, My Green Conscience, and she's also written a book, Bothered by My Green Conscience.  I haven't gotten to the book yet, but I love the site.  She's written extensively on how to create a green driveway.  Not only does it avoid the use of asphalt, a petroleum product, or cement, which gets a whole chapter in Monbiot's book for the emissions being created, but parking a car on grass helps filter the crap that drips off the car, and send water back into the water table.... 


When we park on solid ground, the dirt and oil and grease all run into the street and make their way to the storm drains which carry them out to the river system.  If you don't want fish swimming in grease, park on grass!   

It's a timely read for me because I'm planning to get a new driveway at my rental property.  BUT I'm not sure I'll do it.  In fact, I know I won't do it.  I'm hoping to sell this property in a few years, and I really don't think a grass-covered driveway will be a selling feature.  The bottom line is that a higher re-sale value is more important to me than fish and streams and pollution and carbon emissions. 

Sometimes I really suck as an environmentalist. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can avoid water impacts with permeable pavement (that goes to my blog entry on the subject). I doubt that a driveway of permeable concrete pavers is all that much concrete, but maybe there's someone out there making them using more sustainable methods.

Marie Snyder said...

Thanks for the info!