Posts Tagged ‘pollution’
Can Turgrass Change The Air Temperature?
Temperature Modification
Have you ever had the pleasant experience of walking barefoot in the yard and feeling how cool the grass is? Of course, many of our reel mower enthusiasts ecomow in their bare feet. Grass obviously plays an important role in controlling our outdoor climate.
Studies show that grass can cool the air temperature by absorbing the sun’s heat during the day and releasing it slowly in the evening, thus moderating temperature. The grass will absorb some of the solar radiation to fuel the photosynthesis process. Grass areas also have irregular surface area which scatters light and radiation, greatly reducing glare.
Turf grass will cools itself and its surroundings by a process know as evapo-transpiration. Transpiration from the grass blade, and evaporation from the soil. An acre of turf on a summer day will lose roughly 2,400 gallons of water through evapotranspiration to the atmosphere. Roughly 50% of the sun’s heat striking the turf may be eliminated through this transpirational cooling process.
The cooling properties of turf are so effective that temperatures over turfed surfaces on a sunny summer day will be 10 – 14 degrees cooler than over concrete or asphalt. Or to put it another way, consider the fact that on a block of eight average homes, the front lawns have the cooling effect of 70 tons of air conditioning!
Research studies revealed overall temperature of urban areas may be as much as 5 to 7 °C warmer than that of nearby rural areas. Through the cooling process of transpiration, turfgrasses dissipate high levels of radiant heat in urban areas. Maximum daily canopy temperatures of a green, growing Cynodon turf (Bermuda grass) was found to be 21 °C cooler than a brown dormant turf and 39 °C cooler than a synthetic surface (Table 1; Beard and Johns, 1985). The transpirational cooling effect of green turfs and landscapes can save energy by reductions in the energy input required for interior mechanical cooling of adjacent homes and buildings (Johns and Beard, 1985).
Source:
“Environment Temperature Modification,” The Lawn Institute http://www.thelawninstitute.org/environment/?c=185540 [accessed on June 30, 2009].
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So, you’re ready to purchase a new ecomower but you still have your old gasoline powered rotary mower sitting in your garage, the shed, your basement, or yard. What in the world should you do with it? Do you sell it? Should you give it away? Maybe you should take it to the dump or the transfer station? Letting your old lawn mower take the long journey to a landfill – or for that matter allowing it to be shipped overseas to some other landfill is a BAD idea. You’re buying an ecomower to help the environment, right? Why would you throw your old one away? If your gasoline powered lawn mower is ready to die and you can’t donate it, sell it, or give it to a friend, why not just recycle it!!
Recycling old lawn mowers is not an easy task and it can be difficult to find a local recycling center. For this reason, we have teamed up with Earth911.com to provide you with an extensive database of lawn mower recycling centers across the United States. Simply use the widget below and it will point you towards your nearest lawn mower recycling center. It is that easy!!
Lawn Mower Recycling Tool:
More About Earth911.com
Earth911 delivers actionable local information on recycling and product stewardship that empowers consumers to act locally, live responsibly and contribute to sustainability.
Reduce
Waste reduction is the process and the policy of reducing the amount of waste produced and ultimately disposed. Waste reduction or waste minimization, also known as source reduction, is simply reducing waste at its source. In the waste management hierarchy the most effective policies and processes are mentioned first. Waste minimization is also strongly related to efforts to minimize resource and energy use. The fewer materials used for the same production output means that less waste is produced. Waste minimization may require knowledge of the production process, product life cycle analysis (the tracking of products and their environmental impact from material extraction to their return to earth) and detailed knowledge of the composition of the waste stream. In waste management, product life cycle analysis is often referred to as a cradle-to-grave analysis.
The main sources of waste vary from country to country. Household waste constitutes a relatively small proportion of all waste in any country.
Reuse
When you use an item more than once, it is called reuse. Conventional reuse is where an item is used again for the same function, like when you refill a coffee cup instead of throwing it in the trash. It is also reuse when an item is reused for a different purpose, like when you use a 2-liter soda bottle as a seed-starter greenhouse.
Reuse helps the planet, but it also saves money. In many countries, this savings was not considered beneficial enough to forego the convenience of disposable products. Today’s consumer is becoming more aware of environmental concerns and this awareness is gradually changing business and government policies, and consumer attitudes about what the convenience of a disposable society is really costing us.
Recycle
Recycling is the processing of making used items into new raw material. Recycling conserves our natural raw material resources, and typically uses much less energy. Saving energy means that smokestack emissions of greenhouse gas and other pollutants like mercury are reduced at the power plant, and our energy sources are not depleted as quickly. Recycling is critical to today’s waste management programs.
Recyclable materials can be generated anywhere, and nearly anything is recyclable. They include paper, aluminum, glass, road surfaces, scrap metals, and all forms of plastics. Even food and lawn waste can be recycled. Fryer oil can be made into bio-diesel fuel, some plant products can be fermented into ethanol fuels, and some can be composted into fertilizer, or reduced in size to be used as mulch.
Recyclables need to be sorted and separated into material types before processing into new raw materials. Contamination with other materials affects the value and usefulness of the material to be recycled. This sorting can be performed either by the waste generator or the recycling facility.
The same is true of household recycling programs, and these can be broken down into two basic groups. 1) Curbside collection: where consumers leave recycling containers they place outside their property to be collected by a recycling vehicle. The materials can be either “source-separated” by the consumer into separate containers or commingled in one container to be separated at a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) and 2) A “drop-off” program, where the consumer takes the recyclable materials to facilities where they are separated based on material type for further processing.
React
The “Three R’s” above outline what you can do to help preserve natural resources and protect the environment. With climate change and going green in the news daily, the list of steps everyone of us can take to help our planet is continually growing. React, obviously, is the next step. Conscientious Earth citizens have the ability to learn about the right things to do. After you learn, get out of your chair and actually do something about it: React! Make today the day YOU start to do something about it.
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Tags: engine, gas, landfill, lawnmower, mower information, oil, old, pollution, recycle, rotary mower, waste
Most people do not associate air pollution with mowing the lawn. Yet emissions from lawn mowers, snow blowers, chain saws, leaf vacuums, and similar outdoor power equipment are a significant source of pollution. Today’s small engines emit high levels of carbon monoxide, a colorless, odorless, poisonous gas. They also emit hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides, pollutants that contribute to the formation of ozone. While ozone occurs naturally in the upper atmosphere and shields the earth from harmful radiation, ozone at ground level is a noxious pollutant.
Ground-level ozone impairs lung function, inhibits plant growth, and is a key ingredient of smog.
Emission control for small gasoline engines has not been a crucial design consideration until now. Consequently, small engines are big polluters. And power equipment users inadvertently contribute to the problem by carelessly handling fuel and by improperly maintaining their equipment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the power equipment industry are working to investigate and bring to market cleaner technology for small engines.
Pollution Prevention in Your Own Backyard
EPA anticipates that regulations now being developed will bring cleaner lawn and garden equipment to market within a few years. Meanwhile, consumers can make a difference by adopting practices that will help protect the environment now and in the future:
Avoid spilling gasoline.
Preventing spills and overfills is an easy and effective way for power equipment owners to prevent pollution. Even small gasoline spills evaporate and pollute the air.
Use a gasoline container you can handle easily and hold securely. Pour slowly and smoothly. Use a funnel, or a spout with an automatic stop device to prevent overfilling the gas tank. Keep the cap or spout and the vent hole on gasoline containers closed tightly. Transport and store gasoline and power equipment out of direct sunlight in a cool, dry place. Use caution when pumping gasoline into a container at the gas station.
Maintain your equipment.
Follow the manufacturer’s guidelines for maintenance. Change oil and clean or
replace air filters regularly. Use the proper fuel/oil mixture in two-stroke equipment. Get periodic tune-ups, maintain sharp mower blades, and keep the underside of the deck clean. Take time to winterize equipment each fall.
Consider cleaner options.
Ask your dealer about the new, cleaner gasoline equipment entering the marketplace. Propane and solar options are also available for some types of equipment. Electric equipment is cleaner than equipment powered by gasoline engines. Electrically-powered lawn and garden tools produce essentially no pollution from exhaust emissions or through fuel evaporation. However, generating the power to run electric equipment does produce pollution.
Use manual tools.
Tools that don’t require electric or gasoline engines are especially handy for small yards or small jobs. Hand tools are available to meet a wide variety of lawn and garden needs, like lightweight, quiet, easy-to-use reel push mowers that generate no emissions.
Reduce mowing time.
Use low-maintenance turf grasses or grass/flower seed mixtures that grow slowly and require less mowing. Check with your local agricultural extension service or lawn and garden center about what is appropriate for your region.
Decrease lawn area.
Plant additional trees and shrubs to reduce the energy costs of heating and cooling your house and to provide landscaping for wildlife. Native wildflowers and plants require little to no maintenance after planting.
Recycle old equipment.
Instead of selling or giving away your old lawn and garden power tools, take them to a recycling center where they can be converted into raw material for use in cleaner equipment and other products.
By combining these strategies, you can reduce your personal contribution to pollution. In addition, your yard equipment will last longer and you will save money.
Source:
“Your Yard and Clean Air,” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Mobile Sources: EPA 420-F-94-002, May 1996: http://www.p2pays.org/ref%5C05/04460.pdf [accessed on May 6, 2008].
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Lawn mowers produce several types of pollutants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, ozone precursors, and carbon dioxide.
One type of pollutant emitted by lawn mowers is polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These are classified as probable carcinogens by the CDC. Testing found that operating a typical gasoline mower with a four-cycle engine produced as much PAH as driving a modern car about 150 km or about 95 miles. This means that unless you drive more than 95 mph, your mower actually produces more pollution per hour than your car!
Another source claims that operating a gas mower for one hour will produce the same pollution as driving a car 1300 miles.
Yet another source claims the figure is about 3400 miles of car travel per hour of mower use.
In an hour’s mowing, twenty-six different PAHs were found in the exhaust of the mowers, including 100microgrammes of benzo[a]pyrenes, which have been mentioned as a carcinogen in cigarette smoke. Other chemicals emitted include half a kilogram of carbon monoxide and several grams of methane, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide and smoke particles.
Another pollutant caused disproportionately by gas-powered lawn equipment is ozone. Hydrocarbons from mowers react with nitrogen oxides in the presence of sunlight to produce ozone. Since lawn mowing occurs during the summer months, it exacerbates the already high levels of ground-level ozone present in the summer. Ozone irritates the lining of the lungs and agravates athsma and other respiratory conditions. Ozone is the principal pollutant that causes “Red Alert” warnings about air quality in the summer.
An EPA study found that approximately 9 percent of some types of air pollutants nationwide come from lawn and garden equipment small engines. In metropolitan areas, the concentration of lawns causes this percentage to increase, in some instances to 33%.
The author of one pollution study had this to say: “Using a catalyst would help prevent most emissions from small engines. Of course, people could also use an electrical powered lawn mower instead.”
In Britain, more than 70% of lawn mowers sold are electric.
The concern about toxic pollutants emitted by gas mowers is heightened due to the concentrations experienced by the operator.
Government programs offering deep discounts on electric mowers in exchange for the “surrender” of a gas mower are springing up all over the country.
Source: “Types of pollution emitted by gas lawn mowers,” Lawn Mower Pollution: http://greengrasscutters.com/id7.html [accessed on May 9, 2008].
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