Before you fire up that gas powered lawn mower tomorrow, think about how much black smoke they spew into the air.
In fact, Just Cause says,
"The EPA estimates that 10% of the nation's air pollution is caused by lawn equipment such as chain saws, lawn mowers, golf carts, blowers and weed whippers. 5% can be contributed to lawn mowers alone."
Electric push mowers are not the wimpy little corded things of years past. They are lawn mowing mega-beasts with an appetite for all varieties of grass (and weeds, in my case) with a much lower level of environmental flatulence.
People Powered Machines also reports some staggering EPA numbers:
"Each weekend, about 54 million Americans mow their lawns, using 800 million gallons of gas per year...a traditional gas powered lawn mower produces as much air pollution as 43 new cars each being driven 12,000 miles."
Let's put it a different way, "one hour of mowing is the equivalent of driving 350 miles in terms of volatile organic compounds."
Now that is staggering!
What Can Be Done About the Lawn Mowing Mayhem?
If you have a large area to mow, the ONLY all electric riding mower, The Electric Ox, is the way to go. If you've got less than 1/2 an acre to worry about, then it's time to replace your gas powered mower with an electric one.
The only difference you're likely to notice is all the money and pollution you'll save by being small engine free!
2 Electric Push Mowers to Consider:
Neuton CE 5.2:
Available online for $379 with free shipping.
I stumbled across this incredible electric mower at GreenUpgrader. HowStuffWorks recently reviewed this electric mower and gave it a wonderful rating!
Mower specs:
- only 48 pounds with the battery
- Grass collection bag, a side discharge chute, a mulching plug, a 240 watt-hour battery, a battery charger and a safety key are all included in purchase
- 24-volt, 10-amp-hour sealed lead/acid battery (roughly 1 hour run time)
- Convenient drop-in battery design, which means the battery can be charged inside or outside the mower. This makes it easy to have another battery always charged for larger jobs.
- 14 inch mower deck (could be seen as a drawback, but also contributes to the incredibly light weight)
- Single-lever cutting height adjuster (all 4 wheels adjust with one lever)
- Battery powered only; no corded mowing option.
- 3 inch cutting height
Remington Power Mower MPS6017A:
Available online for $449 from Remington or for $399 from Amazon.
This mower was also reviewed by HowStuffWorks. It earned a slightly better score than the Neuton AND the consumer guide best buy award!
Mower specs:
- Powerful, removable 60 volt battery with up to 1 hour of runtime on a single charge
- 3-in-1 mowing capabilities with bagging, mulching and side discharge (sold separately)
- 60lbs with battery
- 17'' mower deck
- 3.5'' cutting height with single lever wheel adjustments
- PowerSelect technology for customized dual-power operation (cordless or corded option)
- Boost Power Mode feature that generates identical blade tip speeds found in gas mowers
For my money, I would probably go with the Remington. It's more powerful, has a larger mowing deck, .5'' higher possible cutting height, corded and cordless options, and has the power boost feature.
The cons to the Remington, however, are that it is heavier, more expensive, and doesn't come with mulching and side discharge attachments--they are options.
If you decide on the Remington, take one of the Amazon reviewer's advice and unplug the battery once it is fully charged. They say that if you do not, the battery will actually begin to drain.
Just so you know, most electric push mowers are not recommended for yards larger than 1/4 of an acre.
What do you think about switching to an electric push mower? If you have already, how do you like it?
One More Green Mowing Tip:
If you have a little know-how, you could even convert your current gas mower to run on SOLAR POWER!
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Good topic. I purchased a Neuton cordless mower and I have to tell you, it mowes terrible. What a joke and the power is very weak. Second this product is a US product named Neuton but the mower is made in Taiwan, made of almost 99% plastic and it very noisey.
I found a better mower that is cordless which is made in America or USA by a company called Remington mower or http://www.remingtonmower.com, it is a 60 volt battery and it is way more powerful than the Neuton mower but also it is has a dual option, it runs either on battery or cord, what you please. If you run on the battery, it runs over an hour, more than the Neuton mower and 2nd, if it runs on the cord, it runs even stronger and it charges are the sametime. Neuton mower doesn't offer than and Neuton parts are more expensive than the Remington mower.
The other 2 mowers I liked are the craftsman cordless mower and also the Black & Decker cordless mower, these too are made in USA and are better than the Neuton mower.
Whatever you do, don't buy the Neuton, it is horrible machine for lawn mowing. Also Remington mower has another model coming out in late 2008 or early 2009, which will be even better as well
Hey! Thanks for all the great info. I was browsing through a bunch of green websites and blogs and I came across yours and found it very interesting. There are a bunch of others I like too, like the daily green, ecorazzi and earthlab.com. I especially like EarthLab.com’s carbon calculator (http://www.earthlab.com/signupprofile/). I find it really easy to use (it doesn’t make me feel guilty after I take it). Are there any others you would recommend? Can you drop me a link to your favorites (let me know if they are the same as mine).
hey alex, thanks for stopping by. i'm so glad you enjoyed my site...and even mentioned in the presence of those other great blogs!
i'm a fan of all the sites you listed (though i haven't played with earthlab's calculators...i'll have to do that). As far as the sites i like, i have about 60 "green" blogs in my google reader. So what does that tell ya? ;-)
some of my faves are treehugger, daily green, green upgrader, various feeds from grist, hippyshopper (that one is uk based, but i like it even though i'm in the states), meta efficient, and several more. Does that help?
ANYONE ELSE NOTICE WHAT ADD WAS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ARTICLE. GAS POWERED RIDING LAWN MOWER, THE MUSTANG ZERO TURN TO BE EXACT. I THINK YA'LL BEEN PWND.
ha ha. i know. that same add is in my post about THE electric riding mower that i linked to in this article as well.
doesn't matter how many times "electric mower" appear together, i guess those algorithms and stuff just see "mower"...and Mustang dropped a fat load of cash in advertising. ;-)
thanks for stopping by.
Electric mower... better than gas mower.
Reel mower...better than both!
From a "green" viewpoint.
No! Stop! You're beating me to the punch... ;-)