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Lawn Mower Pollution
Lawn Mower pollution
and Design for Living...
Inspirations from the
teachers at the
6th International
Feng Shui Conference
Date: 6/19/2005 12:01:33 PM ( 19 y ) ... viewed 2292 times 
Liora Leah got be thinking about
Lawn Mowers and their pollution.
I was reading her thoughts on her
blog. Mother Earth Heals;
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=309&i=7
Then I was doing research about the teachers
coming to the 6th International Feng Shui Conference
this summer is San Diego.
The speakers page is filled with incredible bio notes
and the subject material each of the teachers will be presenting.
The links alone from these pages
are enough to reinvent our cities and world
and turn our backyards into Enchanted Gardens.
I was looking at the articles by Patricia Michael,
who teaches Permaculture at the upcoming conference:
http://www.fengshuiseminars.com/conferences/speakers/patricia_michael.htm
I found a lead from her links to this:
http://www.sylvangarden.com/resources.html
This is from an Interview with Bill Mollison,
the founder of Permaculture,
the subject Patricia will be teaching
at the conference:
Bill: Well, anything that’s any good is self-perpetuating. I’ve started something I can no longer understand—it’s out of control from the word go. People do things which I find quite amazing—things I would never have done and can’t understand very well.
For example, one of the people I had trained in 1983, Janet McKinsey, disappeared with a friend into the bush—two women with children. They decided they could cut down their needs a lot, and they made a very scientific study of how to do that in their own houses. They’ve now started something called “Home Options for Preservation of the Environment”—HOPE.
They point out, for example, that there are only four things in all cleaners—whether it’s shampoo, laundry detergent, whatever.You buy them in bulk and you mix them up properly, and they all work. It doesn’t matter if they call the stuff ecologically friendly or have dolphins diving around on the label—it still has these damn four things in it. Anything else is just unnecessary additions to make it smell good or color it blue when it goes down the toilet.
and then....
Real Mowing:
Most of us don’t think of garden equipment as causing much air pollution, but the small engines found in lawn mowers, leaf blowers and weed wackers are actually a significant source of smog.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates there are 89 million pieces of lawn and garden equipment in the United States with engines rated at 25 horsepower or less.
Garden equipment engines emit high levels of carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides, producing up to 5% of the nation’s air pollution and a good deal more in many metropolitan areas.
A conventional lawn mower pollutes as much in an hour as 40 late model cars.
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. To top it off, lawn and garden equipment users inadvertently add to the problem by spilling 17 million gallons of fuel each year while refilling their outdoor power equipment. That’s more petroleum than spilled by the Exxon Valdez in the Gulf of Alaska.
The solution is to turn back the clock. The push or reel mower first originated in England in the 1830s. It was the standard for all homeowners before rotary power mowers were introduced after World War II.
Push mowers available today are light weight at only 16 to 30 pounds versus the 40 to 60 pound models of our grandparents’ generation and feature metal handles instead of wood. Ideal for cutting small lawns, they are quiet, stored easily and require no fuel.
New, people-powered reel mowers are lightweight, quiet and fuel free.
Reel lawn mowers yield greener grass because of the clean and even cut, according to Dick Crum of Purdue University’s Cooperative Extension Service. ‘Grass clippings should remain on the lawn to serve as a mulch and prevent evaporation while keeping the ground cooler,’ said Crum. ‘With a reel mower, you can leave the clippings on the lawn, which adds up to one free application of fertilizer.’
Horticulturist Joe Keyser with the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection in Rockville, Md., agrees, saying that the clippings left by these human-powered machines are good for the lawn, eliminating bags of green waste disposal at the local landfill.
‘Mulching clippings into the lawn, on average, saves 25% to 30% of the time spent with conventional mowing,’ says Keyser. ‘Most mowing time is spent dumping clippings and dragging around plastic bags. Returning clippings to the soil’s surface increases biological activity and helps earth worms till the soil below the surface, supporting drainage. And mulching saves resources and conserves water.’
Since Keyser started a major grass recycling program in Beltsville, Md., in 1994, 27,000 tons of grass has been kept from the local waste stream and are now left on lawns. ‘I’m a fan of gas-powered rotary mulching mowers,’ added Keyser, ‘but I think it’s crazy for anyone with a lawn less than 7,000 square feet to cut it with anything but a push mower.’ 1
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