Low Impact

This Friday the 5th of October is Walk To Work Day.  This is a great initiative supported by all levels of Government as well as the Australian Conservation Foundation and a whole host of health groups.

Quite simply, the idea is to encourage people to, where possible, walk to work.

The benefits are many and varied.  From an environmental perspective, it involves less driving, and therefore less CO2 emissions from your car’s tailpipe.  From an urban perspective, it reduces congestion on the roads and car parks.  And from a health perspective, walking is a fantastic low-impact form of exercise that will burn calories, as well as help relieve stress.

There are plenty of people who live within walking distance of work who might be spurred by this day to give the walking commute a try.  But obviously, there are plenty of people who live to far away from work for walking to be an option.  In this case, the Walk To Work Day people suggest that if you must drive, try parking at least a kilometre or two away from work.  You’ll get the fitness benefits, you won’t start the day stressed after fighting over those scarce and popular “close-by” parks, and you’ll reduce your greenhouse gas emissions from not driving your car as far.

And I’ll finish with a great quote I found on the Walk To Work website:

“It took human beings a million years to learn how to walk and fifty years to forget.”

Categories: environment, green, transport