What is the entire buzz bout “green” these days? Many people only need to look as far as their garage to see how they may be affecting the environment. With the increase in environmental awareness, people are realizing there is more they can do as individuals to help live a greener life. Simple things as yard maintenance is one of those areas people can make a difference.

Take a look at the traditional leaf blower for instance. Leaf blowers put out around 30% of unspent fuel with the exhaust they expend. In 2000, the California EPA reported the average leaf blower can expel approximately 145 times the hydrocarbons and 7.5 times the C02 than a 2000 model car going 30 milers per hour and is getting around 15 Miles Per Gallon on gas! Now take that times the millions of people who use leaf blowers every day or weekend!

Most people do not realize there are many human powered machines for some of these simple garden tasks. Take a look at this one simple piece of garden equipment, the push lawn sweeper. It’s called a lawn sweeper but can be used to do many things, basically it can sweep up anything on your lawn from pine cones, pine needles, grass, leaves, and even small sticks and pine cones. Plus, the push lawn sweeper expels no residual hydrocarbons!

Many lawn sweepers can be found for less than $200 and even some around $100. One of the things to keep in mind when purchasing a lawn sweeper, as with any lawn or garden equipment, is having the right expectations of what you are expecting it to do. For example, most yard sweepers have difficulty picking wet objects or large clumps of grass that have been allowed to sit and collect moisture. Push sweepers also work best on lawns that are cut to certain lengths and that are fairly even without large ruts or hills. Still, these tools are great for collecting leaves and are a lot safer on the environment.

Think about the process of collecting leaves, especially if using a leaf blower. You first have to blow all the leaves into a huge pile. Next, you must then get all of the leaves into bags or some type of container to have hauled away or put into a compost pile. Lawn sweepers come with a hamper or hopper that collects the leaves while it is being pushed across the lawn. The hopper can then be dumped or emptied directly into a bag or compost pile. This process sure seems a lot easier than fumbling with a rake and trying to stuff all the leaves into a trash bag.

As with most tools, lawn sweepers come in all shapes and sizes. The size you’ll need will depend on several things such as the size of your lawn and/or storage space. Lawn sweepers can take up quite a bit of room, so it’s important to have a place to store it during the off season. Sweepers also come in many different widths and hopper sizes. Many also have variable height adjustments making them easier to adjust for different grass lengths or lawns that are less smooth or even.

So the next time you fire up your leaf blower, think about all the pollutants you are putting into the air and consider getting a leaf blower. Go green!

Push Lawn sweepers make it easy for anyone to go green! Think about all the pollutants leaf blowers put into the air. Lawn sweepers are a eco-friendly way to clean up leaves, pine cones, or other yard debris!