Archived press release

New Research Shows Global "Footprint" of Motoring As FOE Puts The Car on Trial

6 June 1996

New research, released today, shows the global "footprint" of Britain's motoring extends far further than previously thought [1]:

. Making an average car produces 54 tonnes of waste;

. The average UK car emits 37 tonnes of carbon dioxide in its life;

. Cars account for 11% of the UK's consumption of steel, 11% of our aluminium, 27% of our lead, 4% of our zinc, 10% of our copper and 42% of our consumption of platinum. The extraction of these metals causes serious deforestation and water pollution in mining countries such as New Guinea, Canada and Brazil;

. Every year one million animals including 50,000 badgers are killed on Britain's roads. 50,000 badger deaths is equivalent to one death a year for every badger family in the country.

Roger Higman, Senior Transport Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:

"The "footprint" of the car is far deeper and far broader than previously thought. Little do people realise when they buy a new car that they could be adding to the destruction of forests or the pollution of rivers in places as far away as New Guinea, Canada and Brazil."

"The research also suggests that rising car ownership is as significant a problem globally as rising car use. The notion that progress entails the ownership by every adult of a one and half tonne moving metal box is completely at odds with the needs of the environment."

This weekend Friends of the Earth is putting the car on trial in ten British cities [2]. Local activists dressed as judges, barristers and witnesses will bring home to the British public the full environmental impact of their motoring.

NOTES TO EDITORS

[1] The research was carried out by Simon Bullock of Friends of the Earth's Sustainable Development Research Unit, as part of a wider study of the environmental footprint of the car. Copies of his report are available from Friends of the Earth.

Friends of the Earth's research involved looking at what goes into and comes out of the average car and then calculating from this the material demands and emissions of the new cars sold each year. The processes used to manufacture the raw materials that go into the car were then analysed to produce figures for the car's contribution to mining damage etc.

The research also shows that many technical measures proposed to reduce the impact of cars, although necessary, have serious side effects:

. increasing use of aluminium reduces vehicle weight, thereby improving fuel efficiency and reducing the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.But aluminium smelting produces fluoro-carbons that also lead to global warming;

. increased use of plastics reduces vehicle weight, thereby improving fuel efficiency and reducing the carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming.But plastics are more difficult to recycle than metals and are likely to end up being incinerated or in land-fill;

. the use of rare metals, such as platinum, palladium and rhodium, in catalytic convertors reduces toxic emissions where the car is driven but entails the extraction of huge amounts of ore. 450,000 tonnes of rock are extracted and dumped to produce one tonne of platinum.

[2] The car is charged with:

"causing a persistent menace to society over the last 100 years and with having caused, aided or abetted the:
. loss of over 450,000 lives;
. belching of toxic cocktails of lethal pollution
. increased suffering of people, particularly children, with asthma and other serious health problems;
. wilful destruction of thousands of acres of beautiful British countryside;
. reckless use of oil and other precious natural resources;
. increased threat from global warming"

Contact Tony Bosworth (020 7566 1662) for details of a trial near you.

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