Unpaving paradise - taking out that parking lot - environmental driveways

Now here's the thing about working for a company that is committed to providing people with an alternative driveway solution = I don't drive! lol. :D I spend a lot of time working to provide people with a better enviromental solution to a driveway or parking lot. Or in some cases helping them solve their erosion problems. But like everyone - I know someone who drives - and almost every house has a blacktop driveway. I just don't need to drive so I don't own a car.

I've been a geek girl for 10 years - 8 years basically in Tech Support for a backbone provider in Toronto. Then I quit recently to go work for TerraFirm Enterprises - basically because I was burnt out of tech support and I have known about this company for years. The owner has been asking me to come work for him.. and now I am.

So what's with the driveway? I mean almost every house has one - even if you are like me and renting - and no one drives... there are still driveways and parking lots. Usually those blacktop stretches of deterioriating asphalt paving, with cracks running through the surface.

If I think of driveways I think of my dad's drive: busted along the edges, with some dips that form little pools of water. Basically it seemed to be asphalt, concrete or gravel. Those were the choices. At least with EcoGrid there's a choice.

I'd never really thought of Green Driveways - and my experience with gravel driveways wasn't better. They were those dirt drives with bits of gravel embedded into the surface with the larger pools of water after it rained. Blarg. Of course that was many years ago - and now a good gravel driveway is actually a sound environmental choice... as long as it doesn't compact. That is where the EcoGrid comes into play.

Anyway, seems like they've been using EcoGrid stuff in Europe for around 20 years. Hello? There's an eco-friendly alternative to asphalt and concrete surfaces? You mean you don't have to have end up dumping all the rainwater back into the storm sewer? really? Who'd a thought.

Well, I always felt sad when the paved paradise to put up a parking lot. At least now with the EcoGrid - maybe we can start digging up the parking lots and coming up with a green solution. It might take another twenty years but it would be nice to leave our children with a greener environmentally-friendly parking spot to put their non-gas cars on. :D