Why Clean Cut Lawns Aren’t So Cleanly Cut

4 min readOct 26, 2017

By Zach Sizing

Armageddon is passing over your front lawn once a week, and odds are you don’t even think twice about it. John Deere, Toro, Ferris, Honda, and Craftsman are all commanding officers in the army of polluters currently trying to destroy our home planet. Their foot soldiers: gas guzzling lawn mowers.

Mower pollution accounts for 5–10% of our air pollution. If you don’t believe in emissions or global warming, would you try to breathe out of the exhaust pipe of your car? Probably not…

So what about your good ol’ grass clipper? It’s basically the same thing, in fact the motor has to use fuel to both propel the wheel AND spin a blade at high speed! We regulate the engines in our cars and are obsessed with their efficiency, yet there are barely any regulations placed on the operation or efficiency of mowers. Imagine the earth as a balloon that is being pumped full of toxic air by the billions of machines that we power by burning fuel and releasing emissions into our atmosphere.

The world runs on a cyclic clock. Everything seems good for a few years and then we realize that we must face the problems that we have neglected or ignored. Similar to global tensions building between countries that go unresolved, which lead to wars and mass casualties. Or as simple as when students procrastinate on Friday and Saturday nights. By the time Sunday comes around they are drowning in postponed work and must back track out of their mistake. It is inherent in human nature to not want to deal with our issues. But this is a real problem and it’s creeping up on us faster and faster.

We need to seriously reduce our carbon emissions before we hit the tipping point and the atmosphere begins to become deathly harmful to our breathing. The global Paris Agreement was founded on the basis of keeping the warming of the planet below two degrees Celsius by 2050. Accordingly, there are measures being taken. In fact, a recent news article from Vox wrote about how China, the worlds largest market for cars, is working to place a ban on gas vehicles in the near future. India, Norway, France, Britain, and many other countries are all committed to the elimination of gas-powered vehicles by 2030.

So if all these nations are already planning on changing policies, why should you care or even try to make a change of your own? Well, what are nations made up of? People like you and me who are the ones that truly need to change. One gallon of gas contains 8887 grams of CO2, and to mow all day, like many lawn services do, would take around 10 gallons per day. Then, to mow for the entire year, as they do in warmer climates, would create 32 metric tons per year of emissions. That’s 8X the amount of emissions compared to that produced by a typical automobile.

Guess what: There’s a Solution!!

Much like Tesla, Toyota, Volkswagen and many other brands who are making it their goal to create electric machines to help change the way of the world, there are companies in the lawn care business whose aim is to create equipment that will not harm the landscape with which it is used to beautify. Electric lawn equipment is also popping up on the market, and it’s affordable too! Brands like E-GO produce quality, powerful equipment. So when considering the options, you don’t even have to sacrifice performance! It’s never been easier to make the switch from burning fuel to plugging in and stepping up.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a beautiful front lawn, but the price you are paying is more than the few paper bills that come out of your wallet (or subtracting a number from your online bank account). Transitioning from gas to electric mowers will help to lift us back out of the hole we have dug for ourselves, and prevent a bigger problem before it arises. Electricity is the answer to the future.

Let’s shock the world.

Sources:

China gas vehicle ban:

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/9/13/16293258/ev-revolution

Emissions from mowers account for 5% of global CO2 emissions

https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-09/documents/banks.pdf

Paris Agreement:

https://phys.org/news/2016-09-global-2c-threshold.html

Electric equipment:

https://egopowerplus.com/products

Image of exhaust from truck:

https://costeffective.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/diesel-smoke.jpg