To Green, Or Not To Green?

“The bottom line is that consumers do not know all the questions associated with pesticide use. Most important, no one has all the answers--not the manufacturers, not the EPA” Andrew Cuomo, Attorney General of New York State (1995)

Hybrid cars, renewable resources, conserving energy, organic foods and holistic health products-in the midst of an ever-greening populace, suburbanites are turning green with envy over the verdant and lushly loathed lawns of their neighbor. The irony lies just under foot, literally.
Lawns, lawn mowing and lawn care products alike contribute to the very environmental dilemmas that Americans are so popularly strident in fighting. In the sake of going green, we must look closer to home in making even subtle changes in our daily lives. Some of these changes may be in long strides such as deciding to invest in energy efficient home building materials, purchasing a hybrid car, forsaking the backseat (and large shopping purchases from the natural food source of one’s choice.) Others may simply choose to reuse shopping bags, bicycle to work and forgo personal hygiene chemicals and hang their laundry on a line. All viable and widely practiced “go green” solutions, yet whether holding an earth-praise rally on the city greens or spreading a blanket, lowering to sit and unwrap your organic veggie pocket in the local park, we must consider your act as a regression, a transgression against the very movement you follow to the farmer’s market.
According to Environment &Human Health Inc, a non-profit that is made up of doctors, public health professionals and policy experts committed to the reduction of environmental health risks to individuals, the maintained lawn as we know it covers 30 million acres in the U.S., over which 80 million pounds of pesticides are poured. That is ten times the amount of chemicals per acre that the American farmer uses to secure his crops for the family table. The EHH also reports that common lawn and garden chemicals handled directly by the household have been linked to mutations, birth defects and reproductive issues alike in lab animals. Ewe!
So health conscious and are we, those that would allow our children, pets and peers tread on chemical laden lawns, some of which are frequently watered, allowing the poisonous runoff seep into our streams, rivers and estuaries, further harming our environs. Not only are we affecting ourselves and immediate neighbors (check your wells), the animal world is also feeling the trickle. Two headed frogs and the dead bird (a Canadian study linked pesticides to 3 deaths per acre on farmlands) on your lawn wish to have a word over their polluted homesteads.
The University of Michigan Health System reported in 2003 that 75,000Americans, of which 10,000 are children, are injured by lawn maintenance equipment. In an ABC News segment airing in September of 2007, Young Henry Burmester had a harrowing and avoidable ordeal, an ordeal which most would not be as courageous in countenance after.
"I was behind the lawn mower," Henry said. "It backed up. I tried to push it back, but it was too strong. It pushed me down.", "At least my other foot got saved. But my toes -- they're way up in heaven by now."
If only Henry’s father had fought the societal pressure placed upon him to manicure his lot, to cultivate and nurture what really never belonged underfoot in the first place. The typical grass seed used, and researched in the early 20th century by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Golf Association, is a mix of Bermudan, African and European grasses.
Not only is the lawn mower an accident statistic tally-ticker, it has been an unforgivably polluter of our atmosphere. A Swedish study reported in 2001 that a typical lawn mower, ran for one hour, emits about the same amount of air pollutants as a 100 mile automobile trip. Without the aid of proper emission control devices commonly found in a car, these small engines produce big clouds of carbon monoxide and other nasty air pollutants. Imagine, every homeowner, in every neighborhood, in every town taking a Sunday drive…a 100 mile Sunday drive, every weekend. Yes, and that omits those of us who mow more frequently.
To green, or not to green, can we be ecologically friendly without having to embrace the earth-tones of a dirt lawn, a bark-mulch moat around our abodes? Earth Easy.com, a environmental sustainability website offers many cost effective (taking in the eco-costs of a lawn already expressed) alternatives to the traditional and trendy turf lawn. Clover, which needs no mowing, is excellent groundcover that requires little and remains green even through harsh conditions…May also provide luck. Results may vary.
Native flora, wild grasses and flowers can be charming. What coziness could be found on a bad of an expanse of moss? Go Zen with a rock garden. Get rustic with hay, make a second income with alfalfa. Strawberries can be sweet yard filler while a blackberry bramble can provide much sought privacys.
From land, sea and air, the lawn mower to the emergency room, lawns and lawn care can be the source of trauma, both physical and environmental. To end this rein, to cause a great “green” coup would be a bio-boon. Whatever you choose, the cleaner air, silent afternoons and the quieting of phantom limbs everywhere will be your reward.