Electric Lawn Mowers
By James E. Bressor
When I used to mow our yard with a gasoline-powered lawnmower, here’s how my wife told me that I needed to stop and come to the telephone:
"You have a phone call."
"What?"
"You have a phone call!"
"A what?"
"PHONE CALL!!"
That sort of exchange may have been entertaining to our neighbors, but it really underscored how loud and annoying our mower was.
So when it came time late this past summer to buy a new mower, we knew exactly what we wanted: an electric mower.
Besides giving your eardrums a break, there are great environmental reasons to consider buying an electric mower. Unlike cars, small engines such as those on lawnmowers have not been the target of emission-control regulations, even though these non-road engines contribute more than 10 percent of all air pollution in many urban areas and consume 580 million gallons of gasoline annually. Consequently, these engines are much dirtier than highway vehicles.
Gasoline-powered lawnmowers produce hydrocarbons (a major component of smog), particulate matter (which damages respiratory systems), carbon monoxide (a poisonous gas) and carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming). Cordless electric lawnmowers emit 3,300 times less hydrocarbons, 5,000 times less carbon monoxide (CO), and less than half the carbon dioxide per hour of operation than gasoline engine mowers. Even the newer, more efficient gasoline engines emit 2,000 times more hydrocarbons than electric lawnmowers.
Or here’s another way to look at your power mower: According to one U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study, the average gasoline mower in one hour emits the same volume of hydrocarbons as a 1992 Ford Explorer driven more than 20,000 miles.
Electric mowers produce essentially no pollution from exhaust emissions or through fuel evaporation. Creating the power to run electric equipment does produce pollution, of course, but this is power coming from generating facilities that have pollution controls.
But back to the noise pollution. The buzz of my neighbors’ mowers doesn’t really bother me, because those engines are usually far enough away to be part of the background. As for the mower I use, however, what a pleasure to be mowing with a machine that is many, many decibels quieter. I no longer have a gasoline engine roaring right in front of me, meaning I can talk to my children while mowing, without shouting. Plus, since our mower is electric, it just turns right on without yanking a cord, so if I am interrupted by a phone call, I only have to push a button to restart it.
Finally, an electric mower is relatively inexpensive to operate. For a lawn of half an acre or less, the electricity needed to keep the mower battery charged costs only $3 to $5 per mowing season.
To learn more about the benefits of electric mowers, check out a lawn care equipment report on the Department of Interior website (www.doi.gov/oepc/reports/cgr_lawn.pdf) or visit the EPA website (www.epa.gov).
James Bressor is the Director of Media and Public Relations at the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
Article posted for the week of May 28, 2001.
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