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Go Green With a Cordless Lawn Mower
It's the weekend. A time to relax, put your feet up, and wind down after a hard week at work. Not on your life. Your neighbors get their mowers out, and they proceed to mow their lawns. Let the noise pollution begin, as you close your windows and turn up the television.
If you are one of those who worry about the level of noise your mower makes, or how much carbon emissions result from the use of it, then you may want to consider buying a rechargeable battery one. And if you really want to display your green credentials, how about a mower which charges via solar panels?
Cordless electric lawn mowers are becoming increasingly popular. I've heard of some enthusiasts, who in their desire to go green, have built their own solar powered mowers by converting from gas. Whether that really makes much economic sense or not I'm not too convinced. Getting hold of a used lawnmower might not be too expensive, in fact I know of one which was picked up in a yard sale for just $5. But, it`s when you come to all the additional costs, such as a solar panel (over $100), electric motor (around $300), battery (say $90), and switch, wire, charge controller, meters etc can add up to a further $150. To me it makes more sense just to buy a manufactured battery driven cordless mower now that many have come down in price as they become increasingly popular.
Figures showing the levels of pollution caused by gas-powered mowers are quite sobering. Without question they create a sizeable amount of carbon gases. It's said that running an machine for one hour can produce as much air pollution as driving a new car 350 miles.
If there are on average 50 million people in the US mowing their lawns each week, they will use almost 800 million gallons of gasoline a year, producing masses of air pollutants. Some of these pollutants include carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides. Replacing gas-powered mowers would result in a drastic cutting down on hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon dioxide. As for noise pollution, electric mowers are half as quiet as gas-powered ones.
It isn`t always easy to fill gas-powered mowers up without spilling any fuel. Spillages cost money, and they pollute the atmosphere. Another good reason for changing to electrically driven mowers.
And, better still, using a solar panel to recharge a battery driven lawn mower would cut out greenhouse gasses, thus resulting in nil pollution of any kind, along with a big reduction in noise pollution.
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