There is a dirty secret hidden in plain view – millions of Americans spend their lunch time in their cars. Just check out parking lots during lunch time, at 24-hour businesses, even at night.
In the following video please keep an eye on the four cars marked in this screenshot.
I took this video at night so the headlights and the CO2 emissions would show which cars are occupied: 4 out of 10 cars visible in this video.
Idling the average car that consumes an average of 0.4 gallons of gas per hour causes 3,554 grams of CO2 (per hour) getting emitted into Earth’s atmosphere.
The lunch break at most US companies is 30 minutes. Hence, on that day, these four cars released a combined 6,000 grams (6 kilos) or more than 13 pounds of CO2 into the Earth's atmosphere.
Now, before you think too harshly about the people who spend their lunch time in their cars, ask yourself:
Why would anybody spend their recreational time in a small space of around 100 cubic feet?
In the United States about 16 million people work in retail. If you ever visited the rest room at any retail store, you could probably glance at the store's break-room which, usually, is next to the restrooms.
Drab is too little of a word to describe these environments.
White walls, the cheapest chairs and tables on the market, a small counter with a microwave and an old coffee machine, and two vending machines (food & snacks) dominate the space.
This is especially ridiculous at home improvements stores. Don't home improvement stores tell us that a “fresh coat of paint is the cheapest way to spruce up any home?” Yet, if you get to peak into one of Home Depot's or Lowe's break-rooms, you won't see any vibrant painted walls or at least an inspiring orange or blue wall border.
Please click this picture to see images of best break rooms in the United States:
Here is a list of the retail stores among the Fortune 100 companies (2018)
1 - Walmart / profit: $6,67 billion / 2.2 million employees
14 - Costco Wholesale / profit: $3,134 billion / 194,000 employees
27 - Home Depot / profit: $11,121 billion / 413,000 employees
39 - Target / profit: $2,937 billion / 360,000 employees
42 - Lowe's / profit: $2,314.0 billion / 245,000 employees
74 - Best Buy / profit: $1,464 billion / 125,000 employees
85 - TJX / profit: $3,059 billion / 270,000 employees
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Every single one of these companies could afford to paint their break rooms' walls, acquire nice break room furniture, maybe set up a TV or a small basket ball hoop, or be inspired to do even better things by what the best break-rooms in the United States offer.
Most interestingly, Staples's Worklife webpages offer an inspiring article How to Create a Breakroom that Reflects Your Company Culture but having seen three of their break-rooms, I can vouch for the fact that not one of them features at least one of the 5 ideas listed in this article.
In their article, Staples mentions that their survey found that 45% of employees would "use the break-room more if it had furniture to encourage relaxation." But, again, just as Home Depot and Lowe's don't even paint their break-rooms, Staples who sells furniture that encourages relaxation doesn't put that furniture into their own break rooms.
Of course, the same goes for many small companies but their owners often don't have the means to create cool break-rooms whereas Fortune 500 companies do.
Big retail corporations could also tell their employees that idling cars in their parking lots is against the company's rules but my best guess is they won't because taking that step would draw attention to the recreational value of their break-rooms.
The environmental hypocrisy
Though every Fortune 500 company proudly shows off their sustainability plan, none of them mentions the company's plans to create an environment that doesn't prompt their employees to "flee into their cars."
Meanwhile, idling cars in these retail giants' parking lots create an average of 1,500 grams of CO2 (per car, per half hour lunch break).
If only 25% of America's 16 million retail employees work on any given day, and only 25% of them spend their lunch break in their cars, that's 1 million people idling their cars for 1/2 hour, every day.
Which equates to 1.5 billion grams of CO2 getting emitted into the Earth's atmosphere during lunch breaks.
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We should all call out America's retail giants for not doing everything they can to avoid their employees feeling that they have to spend their lunch break in their cars, because their cars' CO2 emissions bring our planet Earth's climate closer to the tipping point.
At which point, the break-room problem will become all of our problem.
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Visit our Facebook page: Earthday = No-Idling Day – Home
Gisela Hausmann is a creative provocateur, nonfiction writer, and environmentalist. Her work has been featured in regional, national, and international publications including Success magazine and Entrepreneur, and on Bloomberg's podcast "Decrypted."
She tweets @Naked_Determina.
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© 2020 by Gisela Hausmann
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