Lawn mower swap a cutting-edge idea

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/08/2011 (5211 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The idea for a lawn mower swap came out of a neighbourhood meeting a couple years ago, when discussing a five-year green plan for the Daniel McIntyre and St. Matthews neighbourhoods.  

At the meeting, residents suggested things they wanted to see in their neighbourhood, like having greening workshops and educational programs.  

One resident came up with the idea of doing a lawn mower swap, where you can bring your old, two-stroke, gas-powered lawn mowers and exchange them for push mowers with the Daniel McIntyre/St. Matthews Community Association.  

This is one of a few neighbourhoods in Winnipeg and a few municipalities outside the city that is participating in the Community Led Emissions Reduction program. The province created CLER to help Manitoba meet its Kyoto requirements.

According to Robyn Webb, the person in charge of greening for the DMSMCA, old gas mowers are big polluters, particularly in terms of the amount of greenhouse gasses they emit. So, this was suggested as a way of helping reduce emissions.  

By applying for funding from CLER to buy push mowers, the association was able to buy good ones from Lee Valley.  They also conduct a clinic on push mower sharpening, because the new mowers don’t come sharpened. They even do some clinics on organic lawn care, which covers topics like how long you should be cutting your grass, and the importance of leaving cut blades of grass on your lawn to cycle it back into the lawn.  

With the lawn mower swap program, people can bring in their gas mowers, which the association will recycle responsibility through the Home Appliance Recycling Program.

Although the program usually won’t take mowers without there also being a larger appliance to haul away, it worked out for the DMSMCA as the organization usually has larger items to recycle as well.

“When gas mowers aren’t recycled properly, often people will just put them in back lanes where they stay for a long time,” Webb said.

So far the association has swapped about seven lawn mowers, and still has a few mowers left for anyone living within the community boundaries.

Although the current scope of the program is still pretty limited, the hope is it will grow as more people become aware of how polluting a gas mower actually is.  

For more info, contact Robyn Webb at greening@dmsmca.ca.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a West End-based writer.
Neighbourhood Forum is a readers’ column. If you live in The Metro area and would like to contribute to this column, contact jim.timlick@canstarnews.com.