Airports Slowly Greening Up
- added June 20, 2008
- 0 responses
-
-
-
- BetterWatching
- added this
-
Everyone knows that commercial airliners are essentially polluting machines that fly. Far less attention has been paid to the environmental disaster areas that are the airports where they land.
At this week's Eco-Aviation Conference in Washington North America's airports tried to make the case that they're aggressively addressing eco issues. To be fair, the task is daunting. And there are some examples of innovation. But overall, the report card is pretty underwhelming.
Airports are like mini cities: Dallas/Ft. Forth (DFW), one of America's largest, has five terminals, six parking garages, a physical plant, and a giant rental car complex concentrated on 30,000 square feet and serving 60 million passengers per year. They operate enormous fleets of gasoline-powered tugs, bag loading belts, vans and shuttle buses, all of which generate ground level ozone. Run-off from chemicals used to maintain and de-ice planes can find their way into groundwater supplies.
And we are all a little bit to blame. Airports have a virtually 100% transient rate -- and we all know how much we care about leaving the hotel room spotless after we use it. The National Resources Defense Council estimates that the average departing passenger leaves behind nearly 1-1/2 pounds of trash -- and that doesn't even count for garbage we leave on planes as a little parting gift to the arriving airport.
At this week's Eco-Aviation Conference in Washington North America's airports tried to make the case that they're aggressively addressing eco issues. To be fair, the task is daunting. And there are some examples of innovation. But overall, the report card is pretty underwhelming.
Airports are like mini cities: Dallas/Ft. Forth (DFW), one of America's largest, has five terminals, six parking garages, a physical plant, and a giant rental car complex concentrated on 30,000 square feet and serving 60 million passengers per year. They operate enormous fleets of gasoline-powered tugs, bag loading belts, vans and shuttle buses, all of which generate ground level ozone. Run-off from chemicals used to maintain and de-ice planes can find their way into groundwater supplies.
And we are all a little bit to blame. Airports have a virtually 100% transient rate -- and we all know how much we care about leaving the hotel room spotless after we use it. The National Resources Defense Council estimates that the average departing passenger leaves behind nearly 1-1/2 pounds of trash -- and that doesn't even count for garbage we leave on planes as a little parting gift to the arriving airport.
-
-
-
-
- BetterWatching
- 3 months ago
Login/Registration is required to add a response.
