Students for Sustainability is a Port Townsend High School club dedicated to making Port Townsend a greener and more environmentally friendly place by reducing carbon emissions and the amount of unnecessary waste we produce. Last year we successfully passed a ban on single use plastic straws in the city (Port Townsend Municipal Code ordinance 3249). We couldn’t have done this without the huge amount of community support we received and hope to continue working this year with an idling ban. Idling is when a car is stopped, but the engine is still on and burning gas. Transportation, including personal automobiles, is the number one source of greenhouse gas emissions from humans in the United States. Unnecessary vehicle idling wastes 20 - 70% of a gallon of gas per hour, which equates to around 4 - 14 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions entering the atmosphere per hour. Multiply that by the 273 million automobiles in the United States and it is obvious how quickly those emissions add up. 

Not only do emissions from idling contribute significantly to global warming and climate change, they also pollute the air we breath and harm local wildlife. Idling exhaust is more toxic to humans than exhaust from a moving vehicle, affecting the children and the elderly most severely. Not to mention that it simply wastes money--why burn more gas than you need to? The ban we are advocating for would be based on Philadelphia's idling ban, which sets a limit on idling at three minutes except in cases of extreme cold (below 20 degrees fahrenheit). If you have any more specific questions about the exact nature of the ban we intend to propose to city council feel free to email studentsforsustainability09@gmail.com . Please consider signing to help make our city a safer, happier, more sustainable place.

Thank you,

Students for Sustainability.