Firm plants roadside gas-sucking trees

An environmental cleaning company is planting trees along Chicago highways to make up for the emissions their employees' cars leave behind.

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Although based in California with 47 employees, Method Products has a satellite office in suburban Chicago with six employees, all of whom commute to work in cars.

The company got permission to plant 1,000 spruce and pine trees, and planted 525 foot-high saplings this spring, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Wednesday. The rest will be going in soon along the side of Interstate highways.

Sucking in carbon dioxide from traffic exhaust, the conifers will store 301 metric tons over lifetimes conservatively estimated at 40 years, a company contractor said.

As with all projects, there are critics, including Rebecca Stanfield of Environment Illinois, who told the newspaper offsetting emissions with trees "is not a solution to global warming" unless used alongside a cap on emissions overall.