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Green Grass, Brown Air

The road to cleaner air begins right at your own front door – or should we say, “yard?”

Every time you pull that cord or turn the key on your gas-powered lawn mower, you’re pumping far more pollution into the atmosphere than you probably realize. Every hour of gas-powered mowing, for example, produces the same amount of pollution as a 100-mile trip in an automobile.

The pollution produced from gas-powered mowers, trimmers and leaf blowers greatly contributes to the dirty air problems that cause respiratory illnesses and related deaths. It also contributes to global warming. And, it isn’t really necessary.

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates it would cost just $8 per mower to install a catalytic converter that would reduce emissions in these machines by up to 35 percent. That may begin to look appealing to lawn mower companies when the EPA releases new emissions standards for lawn equipment later this year. The standards are expected to be published by fall.

There’s also another solution, of course: Human-powered mowers (the kind with no engines) create no pollution at all, while helping to keep people trim along with their lawns.  And a growing number of people, especially in drier areas, are taking the next logical step, which is to replace their lawn with dry-adapted native plants that don’t need mowed or watered! 

To learn more about this story, click here.

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org