Gas Prices Changing Lawn-Mowing Habits
When Eric King moved from his apartment in Pittsburgh to a single-family home with a lawn, he bought a manual lawn mower instead of the usual gasoline-powered kind. He’s got plenty of company.Sales of manual — or push reel — mowers with cartwheeling blades are rising this year. Officials attribute the surge to increased environmental concerns because of emissions from gas-powered mowers, the attraction of the cheapear push reels mower in the faltering economy and $4-a-gallon gasoline.
“With the way gas prices are going through the roof and are going to stay there or increase even further, that was the main reason I considered one,” said King, 29. “I don’t consider myself an environmentalist; I consider myself an economist.”
American Lawn Mower, a manufacturer of manual and electric lawnmowers, says sales are up 60% to 70% over last year.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Teri McClain, inside sales administrator. “I think gas prices are playing a part in this.”
Photo by Gene J. Puskar.
cassy on June 27th, 2008 12:06 am
Well…lets just face it, we have nothing to do with the continues increase of gasoline.
Let just think some alternatives to make our work easy and ecologically safer.
Lawn Business on October 13th, 2008 3:38 am
I just read another article about a guy who has a lawn care business using a hand powered mower and cycling between lawn jobs – thats hard work!!
Electric mowers are another viable alternative.
Hopefully gas prices will continue the downward trend but the environmental issue is still a concern and some states are pushing for it to be compulsory for all new mowers to have catalytic converters installed.
Leave a Reply