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"They seem so friendly and harmless sitting in your garage," said Kelly Giard, founder of Colorado-based Clean Air Lawn Care. "It's not — it has a huge environmental impact."

Traditional gas-powered lawn mowers are responsible for 5 percent of the nation's air pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, which recently created emission regulations for small engines like those that lawn mowers use. One gas mower running for an hour emits the same amount of pollutants as eight new cars driving 55 mph for the same amount of time, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.

So dedicated lawn preeners who want more than their grass to be green could drive less to offset their mowing pollution, or they could consider using the Prius of lawn care — the electric mower.


Clean Air Lawn Care, which expanded this summer to provide services in Boulder, uses only electric equipment — including mowers, edgers and blowers — to maintain yards. The equipment is charged overnight, but all the company's trucks sport solar panels that can also recharge the mowers between jobs. Giard has said his business is a "triple win" — it provides a necessary service, it's profitable, and it's good for the environment.


"Personally, I think what's going to happen here with gas-powered lawn equipment — it's eventually going to go the way of smoking," Giard said. "It's not your God-given right to pollute the air."

Gas mowers pollute the air in a variety of ways, from global to local. A single gas lawn mower, for example, emits 80 pounds of atmospheric-warming carbon dioxide each year, according to the EPA. That's a big number for a city like Boulder, which is looking to reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions 22 percent by 2012. The city, in fact, recommends an emission-free mow.

"I would say the best option for cutting grass, and the one that supports the goals of the Climate Action Plan, is a manual reel (push) mower," said Beth Powell, who works for the Office of Environmental Affairs, in an e-mail. "It makes for better neighbor relations, is good exercise, they cost less, and they're better for your grass — the clippings provide mulch for your lawn."

The city, however, uses only gas lawn mowers and edgers to trim grass and weeds along city streets. To be fair, Giard says, electric yard equipment, which is not as powerful as gas equipment, is not yet built with industrial use in mind. His company services eight to 10 lawns a day, and that's pushing his mowers' limits.

Americans burn 800 million gallons of gas each year trimming their grassy yards, according to the EPA, but the gas that doesn't make it into the mower's fuel tank is also an environmental concern. The EPA reports that 17 million gallons of fuel are spilled each year while refueling lawn equipment — more than all the oil leaked by the Exxon Valdez off the coast of Alaska in 1989.

Spilled fuel that evaporates into the air and volatile organic compounds spit out by small engines make smog-forming ozone when cooked by heat and sunlight. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has issued 36 ozone alerts around the Front Range already this summer, and last week, the Denver area exceeded the federal limit for ozone concentrations allowed for an eight-hour period.


Archived comments

The Boulder city council should write a resolution banning all lawns with the city.


7/27/2007 4:25:06 AM

The new "suv" of the environmental pc crowd.

7/27/2007 7:14:52 AM

Yes, use an electric mower. That way, at least, the fuel burned to create the electricity to do the job will be put into the air somewhere else.

The real answer to this is in Patriot's post. Gravel yards using white stone to prevent the yard from being a heat sink and contribute to global warming.


7/27/2007 6:26:08 AM

Even worse than lawnmowers: leaf-blowers! These things drive me crazy. Not only do they waste gas, but they move the dirt on the ground from one place to another, while pumping it into the air.

What happened to brooms?

7/27/2007 8:05:24 AM


LOL! So true. Electric is not a perfect solution. Roughly half of electricity comes from burning fossil fuels like coal. It doesn't magically come out of outlets.

But don't fret! I hear Toyota is working on a hybrid lawn mower!


7/27/2007 8:25:23 AM

Rotary reel lawnmowers, which I use, are a great alternative. No pollution of any kind, including noise pollution. And I use it to mow my drip-irrigated lawn. But getting rid of lawns is nonsense, they remain one of the best play surfaces for kids or for just walking around with bare feet in the summer. Instead consider the scale of the lawn in the overall garden, and use there other decorative and functional elements.

7/27/2007 8:33:38 AM

I agree, the old rotary reel lawnmowers are great and you get a cool workout too. They are not noisy so you can mow your lawn early in the morning on the weekend and not disturb your neighbor and they don't take up much room in the garage.


7/27/2007 9:13:14 AM

I'm with you asmith.

I wonder if those annoying people on the mall asking me if I "have a minute for the environment" know that 2 stroke leaf blowers are used to clean up the mall every morning.

7/27/2007 9:28:15 AM

Ban lawns... ya just gotta love Boulder.


7/27/2007 9:38:58 AM

@Hugh_Jardohn and Yerba

Not necessarily... Solar and wind power can produce clean lawn mower electricity quite nicely compared to coal-fired plants.


7/27/2007 10:07:37 AM

Typical response... the article on pot is bad for you is met with "Oh that study is b@!!$#!+" and this puff piece is hailed a "great science".

Yup, the great bastion of open minds that IS Boulder.


7/27/2007 10:22:13 AM

I got a reel mower when I first got my house. I like the whirling sound of it as it mows. But anyone who has used these knows there are two big issues with them. First, they don't work worth anything if you let the grass get a little too high. During the busy growing season I had to mow twice a week to keep this from happening. Second, it takes a lot longer to cut the grass. I had to cut the turf twice from different angles and overlap each pass by almost half.

I have a power mower now and still use both on different occasions, but lets face it ... if you don't enjoy spending hours a week caring for your turf, power is faster.

Oh, and the claim that it's healthier because of the clippings is a joke, right? My power mower mulches far better than my reel mower ever did.

7/27/2007 11:00:35 AM

Electric lawn mowers may not be for everyone, but for me, a cordless electric mower is the way to go. I have a small lawn, I hate lawn mower maintenance, I am environmentally conscious but don't necessarily want to compromise my lifestyle, and I hate the fumes and noise from a gas lawn mower (the electric mower is considerably quieter). I have read some comments on how an electric mower simply redistributes the pollution to where the coal plant is located, etc. This is true. One thing to remember is that gas lawn mower engines are very inefficient compared to the electricity generated at power plants (plus some electricity used is generated from clean sources like wind).

7/27/2007 12:05:45 PM

Somehow, I seriously doubt a generating plant releases as much pollution as a gas powered mower for the same amount of energy. We wouldn't be able to see the sun.

And if it's one of those nasty little two-stroke engines, it's doubly true.


7/27/2007 2:47:52 PM

The EPA has just been recently ordered by the Supreme Court to consider greenhouse gases as air pollution, which I understand will be implemented in 18 months or so. So no current reports from EPA re pollution will be with respect to greenhouse gases.

But there are plenty of other pollutants that can be produced with a two-stroke engine without pollution controls. The suburbs are a bit too dispersed to feel the pollution from lawn mowers, but check out certain parts of Asia to find out noxious widespread usage of 2-stroke engines can be.

7/28/2007 12:03:24 AM

I am solving the problem by continuing to use my 20 year old stinky gas mower. Once we hit the tipping point in less than 10 years, my lawn will burn up from Hades-like heat and no longer require mowing at all.

Thus ultimately limiting my CO2 emissions (exempting those from my lower GI tract - I plant a tree every year to offset those).

7/27/2007 3:44:40 PM

I bought an electric, cordless, lawnmower a few months ago.

Best 400 bucks I ever spent. Quiet, always starts, no messy engine or gasoline to deal with, and certainly cleaner than my old 2-stroke.


7/27/2007 4:23:03 PM

Beat up old Subarus and VW buses with eco-friendly, pro-democratic bumper stickers on them also belch pollution. How about an article highlighting the hypocrisy of the liberal left.


7/27/2007 4:42:06 PM


Poppycock. My fourstroke lawnmower uses less than a 1/4 gallon in a 1/2 hour mowing session or about 1/2 gallon in that hour. An average car burns roughly (60 miles/20mpg = 3 gallons * 8 = 24 gallons for the 8 cars.

Let's see 1/2 gallon causes MORE POLLUTION than 24 gallons. What a load of garbage. You fools will believe anything.

Burning gas, even perfectly produces greenhouse gases proportionate with the weight of gas burned.

Maybe they meant JUST the CO, since they don't use catalytic converters, but that has little to do with global warming.

Now go back to smoking your greenhouse gas free pot, hypocrites that believe any ol' "green article" that you read.


7/27/2007 4:55:04 PM


I read something about the subject a few years ago but I didn't recall anywhere near enough of the details to comment and I didn't want to bother looking it up again right now.

My recollection though was that the results were indeed ... um ... creatively compiled to get the proper results. My recollection was (again I could be wrong on some details):

1. applied only to two stroke engines (most lawnmowers I see are 4-stroke)

2. The results included adding in emissions from evaporation of gasoline due to mowers not having anti-evaporation cap thingy required in your car

3. Results only included some types of exaust gas emissions (those in which two stroke gas mowers are dirtier) rather than total emissions

4. contrasted against properly tuned car operating in a efficient operating regime of highway driving speeds under constant load???

7/30/2007 12:11:45 PM

Baloney, get real. Yes mowers put out more pollutants than cars do per gallon of gas, but that isn't much since so much less gas is burned by them.

I use maybe 3 gal of gas a year in my 4 hp lawnmower. That weighs about 19 lbs. And that turns into maybe 60 lbs of CO2.

If you are talking about CO2, that is a function of the oxygen and carbon combining. One gallon of gas burned in a car or a mower will result in about the same amount of CO2 per gallon. The mower will generate less CO2 per gallon but more CO. It will also generate more of the other nitrous gases. But I drive my car 15K miles per year and so put out 16000 lb of CO2 per year. Therefore 60 lb for the mower isn't much. There are also a lot more cars out there on the road than there are mowers.

So get real and focus on the real problem instead of the insignificant.


8/4/2007 3:14:09 PM

Both Government and private research show that the creation of the electricity (from coal) to power an electric mower for one hour produces over 700 pounds of CO2, which is far greater than the mere ounces of CO2 created from the one gallon of gasoline needed to run that same lawn mower for the same amount of time. Why isn't this being reported?


6/10/2008 11:00:22 AM