Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Are emissions from you lawn mower worse than your car?

If you use a gas powered lawn mower they probably are! At least according to PeoplePoweredMachines.com. They say:
A typical 3.5 horsepower gas mower, for instance, can emit the same amount of
VOCs -- key precursors to smog -- in an hour as a new car driven 340 miles, say
industry experts.
I dunno about you but this was a real shocker to me! Add the fact that I'm always secretly jealous of our neighbors old-fashioned push reel mower (so nice and quiet), and this city girl got some serious motivation to make a change. It just so happened that some friends of ours had a push mower they were no longer using, and we had some garden supplies they could use. So we made a trade and voila! We are now the proud owners of a beautiful and QUIET push mower! Yeah!

I can tell ya that this is one activity that's gonna work my arms for sure! I've been feeling a little under the weather so only got to mow the back yard with it last weekend but my arms are already a tad sore! I'm happy to know I'll be getting in some good old-fashioned exercise for real when I mow the lawn from now on! And one of the best perks to using a reel mower - my four-year-old was able to play outside and even talk to me while I mowed the lawn. Can it get any better than that? This city girl doesn't think so!

One caution about reel mowers - several folks have warned me that you do have to stay on top of your mowing when you make the decision to go unpowered. If you let the grass get too long it gets next to impossible to cut with the reel mower. They are also not recommended for large lawns due to the amount of work they take to push. If you've got a larger sized lawn but still want to reduce your mowing emissions you might find a cordless electric mower to be a better fit.

Interested in getting a reel mower of your own? Checkout this comparison chart. If you wanna go cheaper you might have good luck checking in your local classifieds or on craigslist. I saw many reel mowers going for $20-40 on craigslist in my area.

1 comment:

  1. we have gone powerless and we have about and acre of lawn
    We mow everyday for 20 minutes or so and we totally keep up

    ReplyDelete