Spill-Proof Gas Cans Could Reduce Pollution

State governments are beginning to look at a pollution source in your garage that usually goes unnoticed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

State governments are beginning to look at a pollution source in your garage that usually goes unnoticed. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


That old red gasoline can you use to fill your lawn mower could be polluting more than your car. New York is the first Great Lakes state to consider requiring manufacturers of the cans to come up with spill-proof cans that don’t allow gasoline to evaporate. California already has such a law. Richard Varenchik is with the California Air Resources Board.


“Frequently when you fill it up at the gas station, you spill some gas. When you pour gas into your lawn mower or chain saw, you spill some gas. Frequently you lose the cap to the can and so it sits in your garage and sort of evaporates gasoline into the air.”


Some estimates indicate we as a nation spill a tanker ship’s worth of gasoline each year. Newly designed cans eliminate most of the spill risk and evaporation, but they cost as much as six dollars more.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.