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 at 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.