Doug Wiken at Dakota Today is producing a series of posts on "non-obvious" ways to reduce energy consumption. The counter-intuitive suggestion of the morning (actually last evening, but I just read it): used cars may do more eco-good than Priuses (Prii, anyone? :-) ). Not any old used car -- resurrect my dad's '74 Dodge pickup and take it smokin' down the highway, and you're not doing much good for anybody's lungs (or eardrums). But buying a used car that gets decent mileage makes use of resources that have already been processed. Every Prius (every car) takes a lot of energy to produce -- the equivalent of a thousand gallons of gasoline, reports Doug. Buying a used car involves no new production inputs.

The same principle applies to any durable good: buying used clothes, used appliances, used books is the best form of recycling. You don't even incur the processing costs involved in recycling aluminum cans or plastic or all that other stuff we haul to the recycling center on Saturday.

Of course, Doug misses the best answer for automotive eco-friendliness: buy a used Prius!

We look forward to more unconventional enviromental thinking from Dakota Today. Stay tuned!

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