Parking lots have a nasty tendency to harbor all the oil, grease, and antifreeze that leak from vehicles. And after a heavy rain, all those substances mix together and take a trip to the closest porous surface--no matter whether it's a storm drain, patch of soil, or a river. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency thinks it has the ultimate simple fix: porous pavement.

The EPA has settled on porous concrete, porous asphalt, and interlocking concrete pavers as the most promising water-sucking materials. Now a 3,995-square-meter slice of the organization's Edison, New Jersey parking lot is covered in parking rows filled with different kinds of permeable pavement for a real-world test. So how will the EPA judge the winner?

Each experimental parking row features subsections lined with an impermeable geotextile fabric that collects water and sends it through a series of pipes to a collection tank. Whichever tank holds the most water takes the crown.

We won't find out which material is best at absorbing water any time soon--the EPA will collect data in its parking lot over the next 10 years. And by that time, vehicles might use a minimum of oil, grease, and all the other substances that plague our parking lots.

[Via Scientific American]