The green movement has become an ever-present issue at Palmetto. From the recycling program to the “Trayless Tuesdays” initiative, students continually find ways to bring environmental awareness into the school.
This year, five students from Environmental Science teacher Pam Shlachtman’s Solar Energy class have started a new crusade. Seniors Joelle Deleveaux and Jason Schmidt and juniors Chris Aitken, Josh Barkow, and Sofia Diaz de Villegas began the “No Idle Zone” campaign.
“I know a lot of friends who show up very early to get parking along the sides of the school. When they get here, they stay in their cars and idle, so they can listen to music and run the air conditioning,” Aitken said. “We thought that this was something that negatively impacts the environment that we could fix.”
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, powering off a car will save gas if it will be in an idle position for more than thirty seconds. Moreover, when a car idles, it releases volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter into the atmosphere. These pollutants are all contributors to the hole in the ozone layer, which speeds up global warming and expedites climate change.
The team of students started by writing and filming a public service announcement that aired on WPAW, the school’s closed circuit television network. They then made posters to raise awareness and created “tickets” to put onto cars.
“We came to school pretty early for a few days and found people who were idling in their cars. The tickets we made had facts about how idling burns gas and hurts the environment, so we put them on cars and talked to students who were idling,” Diaz de Villegas said. “Some of them really seemed interested in what we were doing, which was encouraging. It really felt great to make a difference.”
Palmetto is not the only place that has started a crackdown on idling cars. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg ran a no idling public awareness campaign and passed a law that limits how long school buses and cars can idle in certain sections of the city. Reducing idling is becoming a priority to having cleaner air and a healthier environment.
“I got to school early last week and I parked on the east side of the school. I was going to idle, but I saw that cars around me were being ticketed,” junior Jay Castro said. “I turned off my car and went into school instead.”
