[Creative Commons photo by Unbridled Transportaton]
California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District, which includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, offered huge discounts to residents who wanted to swap their gas guzzling lawn mowers for electric.
The program, Mow Down Air Pollution, completely sold out of discounted mowers on April 24th – just 48 hours after the phone lines opened. Mow Down Air Pollution launched in 2003, and each year they make more electric mowers available. This year, they had 4,000 mowers, 500 more than last year. They run the program every spring, so if you missed it this year, residents can sign up for an email alert about next year’s exchange.
Even better than swapping that gas mower for an electric one, you might consider forgoing the lawn thing completely. If your heart is set on grass, there are some even better maintenance options than an electric mower. Those electric mowers plug into the wall to charge up, and for the majority of the U.S., that power still comes from dirty coal plants.
Ready to upgrade to a more eco-friendly mower? Check out this solar powered mower from Husqvarna. If you’re looking to save a buck, give a push mower a try. Or, you can take a page from Google and get goats to munch that grass for you!
About Becky Striepe
Push mower! Goats! If you are so interested in preventing the use of ‘dirty’ power I suspect you live in a cave but I am surprised that you have google and a computer!