Lawn Mower Buyback Plan Approved
The roar of lawn mowers could be replaced with the hum of fume-free, electric replacements under a novel smog-fighting program approved Friday by the Southland’s air quality board.
Under the new rule, companies can buy and scrap homeowners’ gasoline-powered lawn mowers and other garden equipment in the four-county Los Angeles region in exchange for credits toward meeting smog regulations.
Consumers own more than 1.7 million mowers, edgers, leaf blowers, trimmers and chain saws in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. For each hour it operates, the average gasoline-powered mower in the region spews as much in smog-forming gases as 30 average cars driven for an hour.
“If businesses take advantage of this program, they could speed up the replacement of polluting mowers with more environmentally friendly equipment,” said South Coast Air Quality Management District Executive Officer James Lents.
The strategy is yet another way the AQMD is targeting backyard equipment in an effort to bring the nation’s worst smog within healthful limits.
In 1990, the agency banned the sale of high-polluting barbecue lighter fluids. At the time, the regulation incited a protest from the manufacturers and ridicule from much of the public, which dubbed it “Use a barbecue, go to jail.” Now, consumers routinely use newly formulated, low-polluting lighter fluids and other products to stoke their barbecues.
This time, the new “Credits for Clean Lawn and Garden Equipment Rule” was decidedly noncontroversial. Its voluntary, market approach to cleaning the air is strongly preferred by businesses and by AQMD board members, most of whom are Republicans, and illustrates a growing trend in national air pollution control.
The idea is to provide rebates or other incentives to consumers to retire their old lawn equipment and replace it with cleaner-burning alternatives powered by low-emission engines, batteries or old-fashioned muscle, as in the case of push mowers.
AQMD officials estimate that 15% of the region’s lawn mowers and other garden devices might be turned in under the programs.
Private businesses, not the AQMD, will offer the rebates, discounts or other incentives, and the companies can choose the amount they pay and mold the offers however they please to attract consumer trade-ins. It might take months for the first incentive programs to be set up.
One option is that stores could offer rebates subsidized by Los Angeles area industries, such as factories or aerospace plants, that want the credits to help them comply with their pollution limits. The credits could be sold by the companies in the AQMD’s pollution trading market or as a substitute for employee ride-share programs.
The rule is modeled after auto buyback and scrapping programs already in place. Since 1994, more than 7,000 pre-1982 cars dubbed gross polluters have been purchased from Southland owners and scrapped.
Gasoline-powered lawn mowers are among the most highly polluting pieces of mobile equipment left in California after advances in emission controls on most gasoline-powered vehicles.
New state and federal standards have cut their exhaust in recent years, but just like cars, they still emit volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.
Lawn equipment in the four counties produces an average of more than 22 tons of volatile organic compounds a day, more than all of the area’s aircraft, AQMD officials said.
In addition, people spill an estimated 17 million gallons of gasoline per year while filling their mowers’ tanks.
State tests show that a single mower operated for 20 hours a year emits the same amount of smog-forming gases as a 1996 car driven 26,000 miles.
In the past few years, electric lawn mowers have improved in battery power and efficiency, and the equipment is manufactured by several companies.
Cordless mulching mowers that cover up to half an acre of lawn on a single charge cost about $350, about $30 to $100 more than gasoline mowers of equivalent power. Less powerful cordless mowers cost around $250.
Maintenance, however, is cheaper with electric models. The electricity costs about $5 per year, while fuel, tuneups and oil for gasoline-powered mowers cost about $50 per year, according to manufacturer Black & Decker, whose lawn and garden products are all zero-emission.
The lead-acid batteries generally need replacement in five to seven years at a cost of less than $100, and they are recycled at service centers.
“It’s cheaper in the long run, not to mention the convenience of never having to worry about mixing oil and gas and yanking that cord, and dealing with a mower that is really noisy and spits out a lot of fumes that are really bad for the environment,” said Kate Ellis, a spokeswoman for Black & Decker.
One manufacturer, Ransomes Cushman Ryan Corp., has developed a battery-powered riding mower for golf courses that is popular in residential areas because it is as quiet as an electric car.
