Green Girl

There are few pleasant side effects to the rising gas prices. I went to fill up yesterday, and I had to cut the pump off at $60, and I wasn’t full yet. It’s frustrating…but there are a few ways that the increasing prices are actually helping the environment. In addition to encouraging many of us to be more thoughtful when we are planning to drive of the amount of fuel we will use and encouraging those of us who can to invest in greener means of transportation, a few green products have seen a boost as rising fuel costs make traditional products more expensive.

Rosemary Parker of MLive reports:

The Fertilizer Institute in Washington, D.C., reports that rising fuel prices, dependency on imports, increased world demand and the weakening U.S. dollar have contributed to the recent spike in cost of the components of fertilizer. And the priciest component is phosphorus. It costs nearly three times what it did in the 1990s and half again as much as it did just a year or two ago.

Fertilizer containing phosphorous can have disastrous effects on surrounding creeks, rivers, and lakes, as excess phosphorous runs off and feeds weeds and algae, causing oxygen levels to drop and fish and other sea life to die.

So while it’s putting a painful dent in our pocketbooks, we might be a little grateful that the impact of the higher gas prices is actually good for our neighborhood’s fish!

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