(ARA) – As the days grow shorter and temperatures drop, it’s time to prepare your vehicle for the unfavorable road conditions to come. Addressing a few key issues before winter arrives can save you significant hassle and cost. To protect one of your most valuable investments, follow these tips to shield your vehicle from the elements and avoid winter-related damages.

Protect your paint

The majority of drivers are aware of at least one scratch or chip in their vehicles’ paint. Unfortunately, many will not repair these small damages before they rust and become serious issues. A scratch can rust in just 30 days, and snow, ice and freezing temperatures can accelerate and intensify the damage.

Luckily, you can easily avoid a costly repair and restore your vehicle to its original finish with Dupli-Color’s Scratch Fix 2in1. This affordable, easy-to-use touch-up paint offers two applicators – a roller ball for small scratches and a taper brush for larger scratches. As simple as painting your nails, you can repair and protect any exposed metal in minutes, and Dupli-Color’s exact-match colors guarantee a seamless finish. Right now, for each person who finds their vehicle’s color code and enters it online, Dupli-Color will donate $1 to Meals On Wheels for their “Find Your Color, Help Another” initiative.

Vision

Winter weather can reduce visibility, so a clear windshield is extremely important to prevent accident damage. To make certain you have an unobstructed view of the road at all times, examine the defroster system and windshield wipers. Replace any old or cracked blades, and don’t forget your rear wiper. If you live in an area that sees heavy winter precipitation, consider rubber winter blades to avoid ice build-up and provide optimal clearing. Stock up on winter windshield fluid and keep a bottle of de-icing spray in your car to reduce the need to scrape. Check all vehicle lights to make sure your night vision is equally clear, and replace any dim or dead bulbs.

Tires

One of the most essential aspects of vehicle winterization is making sure you have a safe grip on the road. Quality tires help keep your vehicle secure, especially in slippery rain or snow conditions, and inadequate tires will not be effective. Inspect your tire tread and pressure (an auto shop can do this for you) and replace worn tires for optimal traction in snow and ice. If you’ve not done so recently, make sure to rotate your tires and have your brakes checked. If you live in a snow-prone or rural area, you might consider purchasing snow tires and/or chains to get through the tough conditions.

Emergency kit

In the case that something does go wrong this winter and you are stranded, make sure to keep an emergency roadside kit in your vehicle at all times. Include a flashlight and batteries, road flares, a heavy blanket, jumper cables, bottled water and nutrition bars. Keep a charged cell phone with you at all times and check weather conditions before traveling extended distances or into rural areas. You may also benefit from roadside service, particularly if you are traveling alone or long distances.

With a little preparation, your vehicle will be ready for winter and you can avoid any unnecessary issues. Use these tips to make sure your travels are safe, comfortable and without issue this season.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, Americans only recycle 0.6 percent of the 100 billion plastic bags they take home from stores every year; the rest end up in landfills or as litter. Pictured: An anti-plastic bag activist makes a point in Austin, Texas. (Media credit/Ret0dd via Flickr)

Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard conflicting reports regarding how long it really takes for a plastic grocery bag to decompose. Can you set the record straight? – Martha Blount, San Diego, CA

Researchers fear that such ubiquitous bags may never fully decompose; instead they gradually just turn into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic. The most common type of plastic shopping bag is made of polyethylene, a petroleum-derived polymer that microorganisms don’t recognize as food and as such cannot technically "biodegrade." The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines biodegradation as "a process by which microbial organisms transform or alter (through metabolic or enzymatic action) the structure of chemicals introduced into the environment." In "respirometry" tests, whereby experimenters put solid waste in a container with microbe-rich compost and then add air to promote biodegradation, newspapers and banana peels decompose in days or weeks, while plastic shopping bags are not affected.

Even though polyethylene can’t biodegrade, it does break down when subject to ultraviolet radiation from the sun, a process known as photodegradation. When exposed to sunshine, polyethylene’s polymer chains become brittle and crack, eventually turning what was a plastic bag into microscopic synthetic granules. Scientists aren’t sure whether these granules ever decompose fully, and fear that their buildup in marine and terrestrial environments—and in the stomachs of wildlife—portend a bleak future compromised by plastic particles infiltrating every step in the food chain. A plastic bag might be gone in anywhere from 10 to 100 years (estimates vary) if exposed to the sun, but its environmental legacy may last forever.

The best solution to plastic bag waste is to stop using disposable plastic bags altogether. You could invest a few bucks in reusable canvas totes—most supermarket chains now offer them—or bring your own reusable bags or backpacks with you to the store. If you have to choose between paper and plastic, opt for paper. Paper bags can biodegrade in a matter of weeks, and can also go into compost or yard waste piles or the recycling bin. Of course, plastic bags can be recycled also, but as just explained the process is inefficient. According to the nonprofit Worldwatch Institute, Americans only recycle 0.6 percent of the 100 billion plastic bags they take home from stores every year; the rest end up in landfills or as litter.

Another option which some stores are embracing—especially in places like San Francisco where traditional plastic shopping bags are now banned in chain supermarkets and pharmacies—are so-called compostable plastic bags, which are derived from agricultural waste and formed into a fully biodegradable faux-plastic with a consistency similar to the polyethylene bags we are so used to. BioBag is the leader in this field, but other companies are making inroads into this promising new green-friendly market.

San Francisco’s pioneering effort to get rid of polyethylene bags is a positive step, but environmentalists are pushing for such bans more widely. A California effort to ban plastic bags failed again recently, but will likely eventually succeed. Washington, Florida, New Jersey and North Carolina are watching closely and considering similar laws depending on what happens in the Golden State. Worldwatch reports that taxes on plastic bags in South Africa and Ireland have been effective at reducing their use by upwards of 90 percent; Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the Philippines, Taiwan and the UK are also planning to ban or tax plastic bags to help stem the tide of plastic waste.

CONTACTS: Worldwatch, www.worldwatch.org; BioBag, www.biobagusa.com.

Dear EarthTalk: What would it take to produce "green" tires? The tire industry is huge and I understand that tires contain a large amount of petroleum products. Is there an alternative? -- Scott Pierson, Norwalk, CT

Tires are indeed no friends to the environment. Most tires on the road today are constructed of roughly equal parts natural rubber, petroleum and "carbon black" filler (derived partially from burned fossil fuels), along with a dash of other chemical additives to improve functionality. The tire industry has embraced recycling in recent years, but still some 25 percent of tires wind up in landfills, according to Michael Bloch of the GreenLivingTips.com website. Still others are incinerated, which releases benzene, lead, butadiene, styrene and other potential carcinogens into the air we breathe.

Even worse, Bloch reports, nearly half of the spent tires in the U.S. are used as "Tire Derived Fuel" (TDF) and burned alongside other dirty polluting fuels such as coal. According to the Rubber Manufacturer’s Association, old tires fuel cement kilns, pulp and paper mills and industrial boilers, and are used as well by electric utilities and some dedicated tires-to-energy facilities.

Beyond the actual ingredients in tires, environmentalists have also been critical of the tire industry for producing tires that stick to the road so well that they cause engines to burn extra fuel to overcome the added friction, which leads in turn to more greenhouse gas emissions out of our tailpipes.

In response to such criticism, tire engineers have begun incorporating a wide range of new materials as substitutes for petroleum and chemical fillers. Today consumers can already buy low rolling resistance tires that generate about five percent less friction than traditional tires. This translates into a four to eight percent boost in fuel economy depending upon the engine, according to Forrest Patterson of Michelin North America. Over a tire’s lifetime, that could save up to 80 gallons of gas, he says. Encouraging motorists to keep their tires inflated to proper levels has also helped reduce tire-related emissions.

What’s in these greener tires anyway? Chemically toughened natural rubbers, vegetable-based processing oils, and fibers made of plant cellulose are used to replace some of the petroleum in the newer so-called "low-oil" tires. Meanwhile, environmentally benign silica filler (sand microparticles) has been used to replace some of the carbon black reinforcement, with the added benefit of further reducing road friction.

Japan-based Yokohama Tire now sells what it calls the dB Super E-spec car tire, which employs modified natural rubber compounds and processing oil derived from orange peels in place of much of the petroleum in traditional tires. (The company likes to brag that the dB Super E-spec is 80 percent petroleum-free.)

While greener tires are already available, tire makers have been re-doubling efforts to recycle old tires into new ones to further reduce the industry’s environmental impact. Small quantities of reprocessed rubber are showing up increasingly in new tires, but manufacturers would like to see more of the 75 million or so tires Americans send to landfills get reprocessed to live another useful day as new tires or other products.

CONTACTS: Green Living Tips, www.greenlivingtips.com; Michelin North America, www.michelin-us.com; Yokohama Tire, www.yokohamatire.com.

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(ARA) – Everyone’s jumping on the environmental bandwagon, but if you don’t drive a hybrid, how can you make your car more environmentally friendly? Try looking at where the rubber meets the road: your tires.

Admittedly, tires aren’t the sexiest things, but recent technological advances have made them easier on the planet.

The dB Super E-spec tires from Yokohama are made with orange oil, which replaces much of the normally-used petroleum. This new tire represents one of the biggest breakthroughs in tire making since the more than century-old discovery of vulcanized rubber. It certainly gives new meaning to the common auto phrase, “peel out.”

“We’re trying to help save the planet, one orange oil tire at time,” said Yokohama’s Mark Chung. “Essentially, the Super E-spec blends renewable natural rubber with the orange oil extracted from peels at juicing plants. This combo makes the tire 80 percent petroleum free, which is great for the environment.”

“Folks can also save cash at the gas pump because the orange oil tires are lighter and more fuel efficient. Every gallon of gas saved by the Super E-spec means 20 fewer pounds of CO2 released into the atmosphere,” said Chung.

Another way fuel efficiency is achieved is through proper tire inflation. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that approximately 37 million cars and 29 million trucks have underinflated tires. According to AAA, a motorist who drives an average of 12,000 miles annually on tires that are underinflated by five to eight psi (pounds per square inch) is wasting up to 50 gallons of gasoline, equating to $141.50 (at $2.83 a gallon) a year. That’s more than half the cost of a week’s worth of groceries ($226) for a family of four, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Yokohama offers additional earth-friendly tips:

• Once a month, check tire inflation when the tires are cold (at least three to four hours after the vehicle has been driven) check tire pressure with a reliable tire gauge. Be sure that the valve stems have a plastic or metal cap to keep dirt out and seal against leakage.
• Tires should be rotated at least every 6,000 to 8,000 miles and the alignment should be checked once a year. Misaligned tires can cause the car to scrub, which lowers mileage and causes unnecessary tire wear.
• An overinflated tire changes and increases wear on the center of the tread. A tire is designed to run with the vehicle’s weight spread correctly in the road contact zone.
• Clean or replace your air filter. A clogged air filter blocks the air needed to burn fuel efficiently which wastes gas.
• Keep your car tuned up according to the manufacturer’s recommended schedule and you’ll keep all systems in good working order, which can optimize your mileage.
• Slow down. For every five miles per hour you go above 60 mph, you’re lowering your gas mileage and, ultimately, paying even more for each gallon of gas.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

Dear EarthTalk: Is using nitrogen to inflate my car’s tires really better for the environment than using air? And if so, how?‚ – Roger Mawdsley, Abbotsville, BC‚ 

Whether or not it makes environmental sense to inflate car tires with nitrogen instead of air is a matter of much debate. Proponents of nitrogen say the element is a smart choice for the environment primarily because it leaks from tires at a slower rate than air, so tires stay inflated longer at full capacity, which helps a vehicle attain maximum fuel efficiency, i.e. better gas mileage. According to the Get Nitrogen Institute, a Denver-based non-profit which advocates for replacing the air in our tires with nitrogen, under-inflated tires inadvertently are a big contributor to global warming as they cause drivers to waste fuel.‚ 

Although auto experts recommend checking your car’s tire pressure weekly, studies show that the majority of drivers rarely if ever check to see if their tires are properly inflated and usually only add air when a tire is visibly low or beginning to go flat. A recent study by the European division of tire maker Bridgestone found that 93.5 percent of cars in Europe have under-inflated tires, wasting some 2.14 billion gallons of high-priced, polluting fuel every year. Analysts believe that a similar percentage of North Americans are driving around on under-inflated tires as well.‚ 

While properly inflated tires certainly promote better fuel efficiency and are thus good for the environment, not everyone is convinced that filling tires with nitrogen instead of plain ol’ air makes a difference. Terry Jackson, who writes the influential “Driving for Dollars” column for the Bankrate.com website, points out that air is composed primarily of, you guessed it, nitrogen; some 78 percent of the regular air you put in your tires is nitrogen, with oxygen making up most of the remainder. “So going to pure nitrogen only squeezes out a small amount of the oxygen molecules that nitrogen proponents argue are so detrimental,” relates Jackson.‚ 

Nitrogen proponents may quibble that it’s the oxygen in the mix that causes problems, though, as oxidization can start to degrade the rubber inside tires while corroding the interior of the wheels as well. But Jackson counters that tires and wheels will have been long worn out on the outside before any oxygen-induced interior damage causes them to come apart. Also, he adds that a lot of the leakage from tires happens because the wheel and the tire do not line up perfectly, and air (or nitrogen) escapes accordingly.‚ 

Another factor, of course, is cost. Nitrogen-equipped service centers will fill up your tires with nitrogen for something like $10 per tire, which is a far cry from the couple of quarters (if even that) it takes to trigger the air machine at your local gas station. “When it comes down to a dollar decision, it’s hard to argue that spending as much as $40 for nitrogen in a set of tires is a good fiscal move,” writes Jackson.‚ ‚ 

“Save your money and just keep an eye on your tire pressures,” he concludes.‚ 

CONTACTS: Get Nitrogen Institute,‚ www.getnitrogen.org; Bankrate.com,‚ www.bankrate.com‚ 

Dear EarthTalk: Backyard fire pits have become the latest must-have gardening feature. How bad are they on the environment?‚ – Michael O’Laughlin, Tigard, OR‚ 

With Fall setting in and the mercury starting to drop, many of us want to extend our time outdoors, and sitting around a backyard fire pit has become one of the most popular means to do so. But even though it may be fun-s’mores anyone?-it is not good for the environment, especially during times when air quality is already poor.‚ 

It’s hard to assess the larger impact of backyard fire pits on local or regional air quality, but no one questions the fact that breathing in wood smoke can be irritating if not downright harmful. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), so-called fine particles (also called particulate matter) are the most dangerous components of wood smoke from a health perspective, as they “can get into your eyes and respiratory system, where they can cause health problems such as burning eyes, runny nose and illnesses such as bronchitis.”‚ 

Fine particles also aggravate chronic heart and lung diseases, and have been linked to premature deaths in those already suffering from such afflictions. As such, the EPA advises that anyone with congestive heart failure, angina, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema or asthma should steer clear of wood smoke in general. Children’s exposure to wood smoke should also be limited, as their respiratory systems are still developing and they breathe more air (and air pollution) per pound of body weight than adults.‚ 

Geography and topography play a role in how harmful wood smoke can be on a community-wide level. People living in deep, steep-walled valleys where air tends to stagnate should be careful not to light backyard fires during smog alerts or other times when air quality is already poor. Lingering smoke can be an issue even in wide-open areas, especially in winter when temperature inversions limit the flow of air.‚ ‚ 

The Washington State Department of Ecology reports that about 10 percent of the wintertime air pollution statewide can be attributed to fine particles from wood smoke coming out of wood burning stoves. While a wood stove may be a necessary evil as a source of interior heat, there is no excuse for lighting up a backyard fire pit during times when you could be creating health issues for your neighbors.‚ 

Another potential risk to using a backyard fire pit is sparking a forest fire. Some communities that are surrounded by forestland voluntarily institute seasonal burn bans so that residents won’t inadvertently start a forest fire while they are out enjoying their backyard fire pits. If you live in one of these areas, you probably already know it and would be well advised to follow the rules.‚ 

If you must light that backyard fire pit, take some precautions to limit your friends’ and family’s exposure to wood smoke. The Maine Bureau of Air Quality recommends using only seasoned firewood and burning it in a way that promotes complete combustion-small, hot fires are better than large smoldering ones-to minimize the amount of harmful smoke. The moral of the story: If you need to burn, burn responsibly.‚ 

CONTACTS: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA),‚ www.epa.gov; Washington State Department of Ecology,‚ www.ecy.wa.gov; Maine Bureau of Air Quality,‚ www.maine.gov/dep/air/.‚ 

GOT AN ENVIRONMENTAL QUESTION?‚ Send it to:‚ EarthTalk, c/o‚ E/The Environmental Magazine, P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881; submit it at:‚ www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/thisweek/, or e-mail:earthtalk@emagazine.com. Read past columns at:‚ www.emagazine.com/earthtalk/archives.php.