Annually U.S. school children spend 3 billion hours on school buses. And pollution inside of a diesel-powered school bus can be up to 5 times higher than the outside air. There’s a new solution on the horizon that address this environmental health issue in Minnesota.

Project Green Fleet, a program of Clean Air Minnesota, is a voluntary, collaborative effort involving government agencies, business and nonprofit organizations that purchases and installs pollution control equipment on diesel engines in order to reduce emissions and rider exposure to harmful pollutants. Their goal is to retrofit at least 500 school buses by 2007 in the Twin Cities, Rochester and Duluth.

Tips

• Make sure that your child’s school buses are not idling while waiting for children to load.

• Have buses park parallel in school driveway while waiting for children – side-by-side rather than nose-to-tail.

• Don’t let your own car idle - shut off your engine when you are waiting to pick up your own children.

• Encourage schools to invest in cleaner technologies for buses - If you would like more information contact: Bill Droessler, Clean Air Minnesota at 612-334-3388 ext. 103.

Additional Resources

www.projectgreenfleet.org - More specific information about the project.

www.ehhi.org/diesel - Environmental & Human Health Inc’s website

www.epa.gov/cleanschoolbus/ - Environmental Protection Agency website