3 Reasons You Should Use a Reel Mower
|
A reel mower is the type of mower your grandfather may have used It consists of a series of blades that are spun when you push the mower across the lawn. It requires no oil, gas and works great when you take proper care of your new tool.
Reason 1- They Are The Greener Choice This one is painfully obvious but I do feel it needs mentioning so I can explain why reel mowers are the greener choice. Let's start right at the beginning with the manufacture of the mower. With a gas mower comes the engine, cutting blades, protective cover, control cables, wheels, handle, various nuts and bolts. Now if we look at a reel mower you have the handle, wheels and blades that cut the grass. The manufacturing of the reel mower will typically use less materials than it gas counterpart and most reel mowers are made overwhelmingly of metal. The fact that it is made of mostly metal is another factor that makes a reel mower a greener choice. Metals for the most part are 100 recyclable and when that mower reaches the end of its lifespan it can be melted down and made into something else. To do that would be much more difficult with a gas mower since these days they contain many interconnected plastic and metal parts. Not only will a real mower be made of greener materials it also is much greener in it use as well. Obviously when you use a reel mower you will need no fuel other than a bowl of cereal in the morning. To throw some numbers at you to make this a little more real let's look at how much gasoline is used to run mowers each year. The average US family will use around 5 gallons of gas a year on mowing and trimming. It doesn't sound like much but that adds up to 600 million gallons used to mow lawns each year. If you put that 600 million gallons in terms of how many cars it would run for a year then you are looking at around 857,000 cars. Imagine if everyone used a reel mower it would be like taking 857,000 cars off the road every year. Reason 2- They Reduce Pollution. According to the EPA a new gasoline powered mower if used for one hour will produce as much volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxide as 11 new cars being driven for a hour. This is because smaller 2 stroke mower engines have fewer regulations determining fuel efficiency and air pollution standards. Up to 5 % of the air pollution found in the world is from lawn mowers and while that is not much when compared to cars or industrial manufacturing every little bit adds more to the atmosphere. The next way that gasoline powered mowers cause pollution is the split gasoline and oil used to power them. It is estimated that people spill up to 17 million gallons of fuel mostly gasoline while filling up lawn care equipment each year. This spilled fuel can eventually make its way into groundwater and will contaminate it and all the soil it passed through on its way down. What doesn't actually soak into the ground can evaporate into the atmosphere and will add to the pollution that was produced by engines. Finally we have one that most people don't think about and that is noise pollution. Small engines without sufficiently sized mufflers are known to be noisy little machines. Part of the recommended safety equipment for using lawn mowers is a set of earplugs, but how many of us actually wear them. The average mower will produce around 95 decibels of noise which with long enough exposure will result in hearing damage. Not only does this affect you but your neighbors as well. How many times have you been woken up in the morning by that early bird mower who just can't wait to cut the grass? Well if he or she was using a reel mower your sleep would have never been disturbed. Reason 3- They Are Better For You And Your Lawn. The final reason is a simple one but I believe it is valid point in today's world. When you use a reel mower you are not exposing yourself to pollution and noise from the engine. This lack of exposure can have a direct impact on your health over the long term, since effects from the exposure of VOC's, nitrogen oxides and noise is typically cumulative and will add up over the course of a lifetime. Using a reel mower is also better for you since it may make you sweat a little more to cut the lawn. That little extra effort could go along way in keeping you fit and healthy into your later years. The reel mower is also healthier for your grass as well. A typical gas powered mower uses a rotary cutting action that tears more than cuts the blades of grass. The ragged ends of the grass leave it weaker and more susceptible to disease and environmental factors. In comparison the cutting action of the reel mower acts more like scissors. It essentially squeezes the grass between two cutting blades and neatly cuts its in a smooth stroke. This gives a nice uniform cut to the grass which is much easier for the grass to recover from. In addition the cutting action of the reel mower chops up and spreads the grass into a mulch along the whole cutting path. This means you won't have piled up grass clippings like you would get from the rotary action of the gas powered mower. This mulch returns nutrients back into the soil and help the grass grow better than if it was removed. Sources: http://www.project.org/info.php?recordID=383 http://www.uvm.edu/pss/ppp/articles/fuels.html http://www.peoplepoweredmachines.com/faq-environment.htm http://toxtown.nlm.nih.gov/text_version/chemicals.php?id=31 https://www.chem.purdue.edu/chemsafety/Training/PPETrain/dblevels.htm |
Further Resources    |
“As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.”