I would like to think I am an environmentalist. Japan is one of the leading countries in recycling and reducing emissions. I am proud to live here.

Recently I decided to buy a new car. A few on the market are eco-friendly such as the Prius, to name but one. Unfortunately, the car I wanted is not eco-friendly. A way to make it more eco-friendly was to have the car converted to run on LPG.

Since there are hundreds of thousands of taxis, trucks etc. that have been converted to LPG, I was quite shocked at the quote to convert a new car: over ¥1 million. To encourage more people to take this step, shouldn't the price be more reasonable?

From the United States to Britain, conversions cost approximately one-third of the price quoted here in Japan. In fact, I could ship my car to Britain and back with a conversion and still have change from a million yen. This, though, would hardly be an eco-friendly move. In this day and age of the fight to reduce emissions I would have thought that Japan would make it easier for the individual to convert.

peter timmins