Energy Efficient Choices

A famous frog once said, ‘It's not easy being green’, and that may have been true at one time, but now with a new generation of creative thinkers and innovative concepts, we can truly look around our world and say, ‘It's gotten much easier being green’. Still, it's not a piece of cake, but with even just a little commitment and open mindedness, you can transform many of the items and habits in your life to where they have much less of an environmental impact than before...and you'll often save money in the process.

So, what is green? Well for starters, unless you are experiencing a drought, your grass is green, your weeds are green, many of your garden plants are green and your garden vegetables are green (well, the leaves, anyway). I know I am just referring to their color, but where do you think the term ‘green’ came from in the first place?

It's somewhat ironic that one of the last pieces of gardening equipment to transition to green was the lawn mower since it is an integral part of the well groomed, American green lawn. Although it did take some time for a powerful enough cordless (for obvious reasons) electric lawn mower to become available, it finally has, and now it's time for you to consider making this transition to the electric lawn mower and electric garden accessories.

Why scrap the gasoline powered lawn mower? Because the level of air pollution and toxins released from cutting your grass for an hour with a gasoline powered lawn mower is equivalent to driving your car for 100 miles. Unless you were to purchase an extremely expensive lawn mower with a catalytic converter and anti-pollution controls, your lawn mower is basically a carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide emitting machine that also cuts grass.

Your weed whacker isn't much better. It may have a smaller engine, but it's toxic greenhouse emissions are just as unnecessary as that of the gasoline powered lawn mower. This is the same for any and all gardening equipment that utilizes gasoline powered engines. For any and all gardening equipment purchasing decisions, your first choice should be to buy only electrically powered gardening equipment and tools.

For the sake of being practical, where a battery charge is insufficient to manage much larger lawns and landscaping environments, the next choice would be propane powered lawn mowers and propane powered gardening equipment. These items still emit greenhouse gases, but only a small fraction of the level of gasoline powered devices, plus their emissions of toxins are negligible.

Another primary part of many gardens, is a functional vegetable garden. There was a time when only gasoline powered equipment could provide the power necessary to till the earth and dig holes, but technology and innovation has caught up. Now, even the toughest vegetable gardening tasks can be performed with cordless electric gardening equipment or propane powered gardening equipment.

Whether you only have a lawn, only have a garden, or have both, you have nothing to lose and will gain an improved environment by transitioning all your lawn and garden equipment to using cordless electric or propane powered versions of that equipment. Most people may be surprised to see that these items, now being mass produced on a much larger scale, are priced very close to their gasoline powered counterparts, making the final decision to change, rather easy.

As I said before, "‘It's gotten much easier being green’."

Be Green

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