Petrol Lawn Mowers.

[goosey]

I was Surprised by two facts in my Wildlife Trust book, Attracting Wildlife to your Garden, It says that:
1. A petrol lawnmower pollutes as much in an hour as 40 modern cars.
2. A 3.5 hp mower emits the same amount of VOC's in an hour as a car driven for 340 miles!

I wonder how many lawns will be mown over this Easter weekend?

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by goosey

I was Surprised by two facts in my Wildlife Trust book, Attracting Wildlife to your Garden, It says that:
1. A petrol lawnmower pollutes as much in an hour as 40 modern cars.
2. A 3.5 hp mower emits the same amount of VOC's in an hour as a car driven for 340 miles!

I wonder how many lawns will be mown over this Easter weekend?

I think someone at your local wildlife trust has been hitting the wrong buttons on their calculator. Certainly there is a problem but for some more realistic figures and solutions see:

Grass Cutting Beats Driving in Making Air Pollution ENS 31may01


The very extreme figures seem related to 'old' and potentially poorly maintained mower engines, it is also important to note that the pollution figures relate to PAH, not to the whole range of emissions - SOx, NOx, CO2 etc. Still there is clearly a need for a debate about how gardens can be best maintained; getting rid of lawns also brings problems - see Wildlife Gardening forum !

CM

[brainfarmer]

i think this illustrates a wider problem about 'being green'. is it better to have a large lawn that can only be maintained by power mowing - either electrical or petrol. if u read any supplier of powered mowers they will extoll the virtues of a lawn whilst playing down the pollution their machines create.
im never convinced by figures because its a very inexact science at the moment so we are left to take a guess as to what is best. so the choices are have a lawn and mow it, have a lawn and let it go wild or dont have a lawn.

[thunder]

Originally Posted by brainfarmer

so the choices are have a lawn and mow it, have a lawn and let it go wild or dont have a lawn.

Or have a lawn and mow it with a hand propelled mower or a scythe.

thunder

[brainfarmer]

if u are able being disabled im not.

[goosey]

Originally Posted by Cotham Marble

I think someone at your local wildlife trust has been hitting the wrong buttons on their calculator. Certainly there is a problem but for some more realistic figures and solutions see:

Grass Cutting Beats Driving in Making Air Pollution ENS 31may01


The very extreme figures seem related to 'old' and potentially poorly maintained mower engines, it is also important to note that the pollution figures relate to PAH, not to the whole range of emissions - SOx, NOx, CO2 etc. Still there is clearly a need for a debate about how gardens can be best maintained; getting rid of lawns also brings problems - see Wildlife Gardening forum !

CM

The book I mentioned was first published in 2004. It doesn't say how old the facts are or where the facts even came from, sorry not a good basis for a thread starter - but I found the figures so staggering.

[kaz]

I had never thought about carbon footprints from mowing the lawn before I read this. We have a large, very rough area of lawn that we mow with a (well maintained) industrial size petrol mower. Large areas are inaccessable and are left wild to attract wildlife rather than being strimmed and the blackbirds and thrushes love the mown areas. We planted trees when we moved here 18 years ago which now provide valuable habitat for wildlife.

[louis.otto]

It doesn't take an Einstein equivalent to work out that a petrol lawn mower will be worse for your local environment than maybe an electric one, but clearly someone's giving you the wrong end of the stick with those figures!

[medieval knievel]

actually, those figures are far tamer than any i'd seen for two stroke engines (non-CO2 emissions).
one i heard was a two stroke engine will emit in one hour, the same pollutants as a modern petrol engine (with catalytic converter fitted) would in 16,000 miles driving.

found this online:
"one jet-ski driven for one 8 hour period emits the same amount of pollution as a car driven for 100,000 miles."
Factsheet on Off-Road Vehicles - Wildlands - Sierra Club

[petermcgain]

For those who are able, there are some excellent push mowers (non-polluting, good exercise) available. We have one (manufactured by Brill), it's easy to push and brings the old sounds of summer back.