How much work do you put into maintaining your lawn? You're probably spending hours behind a push mower or riding around on a lawn mower each week, forking over gasoline money to constantly keep your mower running, and setting up sprinklers to keep your lawn damp when the rainy season slows. Keeping a lawn maintained can be both time consuming and expensive. It can also be harmful to the environment, depending on how you care for your lawn.
Herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and water supply are all being used to maintain green, luscious and insect-free lawns across the United States, despite their environmental impact. So exactly what kind of environmental and human health impact are caused by lawn maintenance? Let's look at the numbers.
An estimated 67 million pounds of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides are applied around homes and gardens each year. In commercial areas, another 165 million pounds are applied. It's also been estimated that about 30% of our nation's water supply is used for watering lawns. In hotter, dryer areas such as Dallas, Texas, as much as 60% of the city's water supply is used to water lawns in the summer.
Every week we see mowers out and about, keeping the lands that house our parks, playing fields, and much more neat and trimmed. And all weekend long we hear the sounds of our neighbors mowing. Gasoline is being used and the noise level increases. Some lawn clippings are thrown into plastic bags, estimated to compromise between 20-50% of America's landfills.
When pesticides are used—including herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides, they are tracked into homes and able to enter the body through the lungs, mouth and skin. A 1987 grant from the National Cancer Institute revealed that children were six times more likely to develop leukemia in households that use lawn pesticides. When sprayed, chemicals can drift off, killing birds, endangering water supplies and land in the yards of unsuspecting neighbors, putting them at risk as well.
So where's the solution? If you stopped taking care of your lawn, you'd have more free time, but you'd also wind up with higher grass and perhaps more signs of nature. If you're open to letting nature do it's thing, taking a break from lawn maintenance might be a great idea, but some don't have a choice.
An estimated 67 million pounds of herbicides, fungicides and insecticides are applied around homes and gardens each year. In commercial areas, another 165 million pounds are applied. It's also been estimated that about 30% of our nation's water supply is used for watering lawns. In hotter, dryer areas such as Dallas, Texas, as much as 60% of the city's water supply is used to water lawns in the summer.
Every week we see mowers out and about, keeping the lands that house our parks, playing fields, and much more neat and trimmed. And all weekend long we hear the sounds of our neighbors mowing. Gasoline is being used and the noise level increases. Some lawn clippings are thrown into plastic bags, estimated to compromise between 20-50% of America's landfills.
When pesticides are used—including herbicides, fungicides, insecticides and rodenticides, they are tracked into homes and able to enter the body through the lungs, mouth and skin. A 1987 grant from the National Cancer Institute revealed that children were six times more likely to develop leukemia in households that use lawn pesticides. When sprayed, chemicals can drift off, killing birds, endangering water supplies and land in the yards of unsuspecting neighbors, putting them at risk as well.
So where's the solution? If you stopped taking care of your lawn, you'd have more free time, but you'd also wind up with higher grass and perhaps more signs of nature. If you're open to letting nature do it's thing, taking a break from lawn maintenance might be a great idea, but some don't have a choice.
