Making Lawn Care Even Greener
Imagine neighborhoods with gardens instead of grass.
It’s a cultural norm to mow our yards when the grass gets too long, water when it’s dry, or repair with new sod when damaged. But how silly is that? Putting time and energy into a well kept lawn to only get the satisfaction of how straight our mowing paths are? Our well kept grass is giving us nothing useful in return.
AND those emissions from our lawn mowers are terrible–we mean really terrible. Until doing a little research, we didn’t realize the extent of this air pollution.
”According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a new gas powered lawn mower produces volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides emissions air pollution in one hour of operation as 11 new cars each being driven for one hour.”
Research similar to the one above is pushing many towards the no-mow movement (converting part or all of their lawns to a less thirsty form of landscape). Imagine your neighborhood filled with gardens instead of grass–vegetable gardens, butterfly gardens, or even rock gardens. All requiring no lawn mowers and no terrible emissions into the environment. How cool!
If you aren’t ready to make your yard completely no-mow or are in the process, like us, of slowly transitioning to a grassless yard, how can you be more eco friendly?
First, get rid of that gas powered mower and switch to something greener:
Use an electric mower: Not the best option, but still better than a gas mower. “Electric mowers don't totally eliminate pollution, however emissions from the electric industry are more regulated and are not in your backyard. Also they save on gas spills and gas refinery and transportation.” Learn more here.
Purchase a reel mower: This is how we’ve decided to become more eco friendly until transforming into a no-mow yard. Reel mowers allow you to manually cut the grass with nothing but your own power and are very inexpensive. Yes, they require a little more effort, but we like the extra workout:) This is the reel mower we use.
Slowly transition to a no-mow yard: Switch out your grass with low-maintenance native plants, a butterfly garden, beds full of veggies, or a rock garden.
Buy goats: Not ready to give up your grass? Buy a few goats to manage it for you:)
Think of the impact we could make on the amount of emissions put into the environment and water wasted if each of us took a small step towards greener lawn care.
