“Green” Used Cars: Save The Environment By Buying a Used Car
Sure, you can get a <a href="http://www.cheapusedcarscentral.com">cheap used car</a>, but what about a green used car? Can used cars save the planet? If you're an environmentally concerned individual, you're probably taking a good hard look at how you can reduce your footprint from your lifestyle. A big part of the average person's environmental footprint occurs because of their transportation needs, which for most people means their car.
To help mitigate this, many concerned individuals are buying high priced hybrid cars that get much better gas mileage than a traditional car of the same size. This all sounds very environmentally friendly, doesn't it? However, this thinking neglects one huge part of the picture: manufacturing a new car uses up tons of fossil fuels, and lead to a large amount of fossil fuels being consumed along the way.
Consider what actually building a new car entails. Iron, aluminum, and other raw materials must be mined, refined, and transformed into the raw materials to build a car. These materials have to be transported to a factory, where thousands of electricity powered machines work tirelessly to form the car. The car is then shipped across the country to the car dealerships. This leaves out all the energy consumed in many other parts of the business, but it is quite clear that new cars are not environmentally friendly.
Most people are sold on the benefits of recycling, but this attitude has yet to carry over into cars. When you're buying a used car, you are literally recycling a car. When you choose a used car over a new one, you save vast amounts of resources and energy from being consumed, and vast amount of greenhouse gases from being produced. Quite simple, the environmental savings of buying a used car will far outweigh the small efficiency gain from that shiny new hybrid.
Used cars don't have to be gas guzzlers, either. A used small displacement compact car can get 35 mpg, which isn't as impressive a hybrid, but is still a huge improvement over an SUV. Buying a used car with a manual transmission can also help out with mild hypermiling efforts, to ensure that you get the best MPG your car is capable of. Since manual transmissions are common on older cars, this also makes them appealing.
Of course, you may disagree with the view, and thats OK. However, if you're serious about protecting the environment, you need to consider the entire costs of your actions, not just the reoccurring ones. Next time you're in need of a vehicle, give used cars a good hard look.
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