Published: September 01. 2010 2:00AM

By Susan Schwartzkopf

Remember the days when the final school bell rang and you ran outside with pure joy knowing that the day was over and you could now get down to the serious business of going home and playing with your friends? As you rushed out of the building to the parking lot, you likely saw buses with doors open, ready to be filled with students, and cars with parents sitting inside, waving out the window, waiting for their kid to find them … all with their engines running.

We certainly didn’t think about what we were breathing, did we? Today we know the pollution produced by car engines contributes to poor air quality and global warming and is also harmful to our health. Vehicle exhaust contains air toxins and fine particles, among other pollutants, which are associated with increased incidence of respiratory ailments and heart disease, as well as greater cancer risk.

Stephanie Walker, a Woodland Elementary volunteer and mother of two students, couldn’t help but notice how bad the air was outside of the school. With support from Greenville County, Walker helped implement a Breathe Better at School program (B2) at Woodland. She noted, “Some 200-plus parents pick up their children after school, and some start lining up an hour before school lets out. Imagine the idling that was going on before implementing B2. It was out of control. You could smell the exhaust and heat coming off the asphalt, and children had to walk through that to get to their cars at the end of the day.”

This isn’t just a problem at schools, it’s a problem wherever a car sits idle with the engine running — streets, office parking lots, grocery stores, day cares, stadium lots and more. Not every day does such an easy task emerge that will ultimately prevent toxins from entering the air and harming our health and environment. We don’t need to shut down a factory, we don’t need to go out and buy the latest eco-friendly gadget or bring in the world’s top green engineers. All we need to do is turn off our engines! And for those who question if stopping and restarting their car may be detrimental to the engine, fear not. Information from the Hinkle Charitable Foundation separates myth from reality:

Myth 1: Cars should run in an idling mode for several minutes before being driven.

Wrong. Modern engines do not need more than a few seconds of idling time before they can be driven safely.

Myth 2: Each time you start your car, you waste more gasoline than if you let it idle.

Wrong. Automotive engines do not operate efficiently when they idle. Experts say there is a maximum 10 second break-even rule. If you are idling longer than 10 seconds, both you and the engine are better off if the engine is turned off and restarted.

Myth 3: Repeatedly restarting your car is hard on the engine and quickly drains the battery.

Wrong. Frequently restarting your engine does negligible damage to the engine and does not drain modern batteries excessively. In fact, the opposite is true: Idling forces an engine to operate in a very inefficient and gasoline-rich mode that, over time, can degrade the engine’s performance and reduce mileage.

Most of us voluntarily idle between five and 10 minutes each day. If we reduce idling by five minutes a day, we will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 220-440 pounds in a year. Add up fuel savings, indirect fuel efficiency and wear and tear on our vehicles, and we will save $63-$134 annually.

According to the State of the Air 2010 report, Greenville County's grade improved from failing to passing in annual particle pollution levels, and went from an "F" to a "C" in short-term particle pollution. By understanding the effects of idling and reducing the practice, we can improve our vehicle’s performance, save money and continue to improve the air quality in our area.

Sidebar: For more information on implementing the B2 program at your school, contact:

Dan Powell, Greenville County

864-467-7287

Marian Nanney , SCDHEC Bureau of Air Quality

803-898-4852