“Green” RVs?
This is a bit off-topic, but it’s interesting to me to see what other Elkhart County industries, especially dirty ones like the RV industry, are doing to try to green up their act. For the most part (with one exception that I know of), they’re doing nothing.
But now Coachmen (one of the biggest RV companies) has announced they’re making an environmentally-friendly RV. Hmmm. I’m immediately skeptical that a product built on adhesives, PVC, plastics, and all kinds of nasty chemicals in the floors, walls, ceilings, exteriors (this is why Katrina victims living in FEMA trailers are getting sick), etc. can actually be environmentally friendly.
So what is Coachmen trying to do? Two things: they want their RVs to run on biodiesel (something not hard for the already diesel engine) and they want to install solar panels to re-charge the batteries, instead of using the diesel generator. From the article:
“We have a tremendous amount of testing to do before we begin building RVs or structures with solar panels,” said Rick Lavers, Coachmen’s chief executive.
A “tremendous amount of testing” to install 2 proven technologies. Hmmmm. I’m still skeptical, but any attempt to green up an otherwise nasty product can’t hurt.
RVs are overall neat “self-contained homes” of a sort, and most have separate grey and black water systems (sink/shower water in one, sewage in another), and things like high-efficiency fridges that operate on battery, electric hook-up, or propane. The industry overall is in great need of a greening up, however, they’re just too proud of the fact that even when gas prices go up, RV sales don’t go down.
