American lawn care is going electric

American lawn care is going electric

For generations of Americans, the soundtrack to spring weekends has been a rise in bird song and the loud, constant “virrrrrr” of neighbors cutting their growing grass. But the gas lawn mowers, leaf blowers and weed eaters that have been used for over a century to keep lawns manicured are not only noisy—in the past few years, researchers have discovered that they also pose an outsized risk to the environment and to human health.

In response, cities across the U.S. are experimenting with incentive programs to encourage their residents to opt for more environmentally friendly electric lawn equipment. The shape these programs take is not one-size-fits all: From bans to rebates to tax credits offered at a variety of price points and stops along the customer journey, each program has made its own calculations that take into account what the location can afford and what will best attract residents to take action, Reasons to be Cheerful says. But across the board, these relatively new programs are producing promising results.

“I think the most important thing is that it’s really exciting to see that so many cities and counties and states and utilities and communities across our country are taking action to tackle the really polluting, really loud, gas-powered lawn equipment,” says Kirsten Schatz, clean air advocate for Colorado Public Interest Research Group (CoPIRG). “It’s a real mix of approaches [that are being taken] with, I think, some mixed results. But altogether, things are moving in the right direction.”

Anything that runs on gas—think cars, planes, stoves and water heaters—releases greenhouse gases that contribute to the warming of the planet. An important step in curbing emissions is to transition these machines to electric whenever and wherever possible. You might think that saving up to tackle the biggest items would make the biggest impact on reducing your carbon footprint. But physical size does not always correlate to impact. Gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers may be smaller than cars and used less frequently, but they produce a shocking amount of pollution because their engines are less efficient than those used in more technologically advanced products.

In 2023, Environment America Research & Policy Center published a report based on 2020 EPA data that found that gas-powered lawn equipment produced the same amount of fine particulate pollution in a year as 234 million cars and more carbon dioxide than the entire city of Los Angeles. In addition to polluting the environment, the toxic byproducts of running gas equipment have been linked to negative health impacts ranging from cancer and reproductive issues to mental health problems.