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Air Quality District Offers Financial Incentive to Get Rid of Gas-Powered Lawnmowers

Gas-powered lawnmowers that run for an hour produce pollutants equivalent to a car driving 300 miles.
RUDY AND PETER SKITTERIANS
/
PIXABAY
Gas-powered lawnmowers that run for an hour produce pollutants equivalent to a car driving 300 miles.

Residents living in Summit, Portage, or Medina county looking to switch to greener options to help the environment can start with their lawn mower and possibly get paid to do it.

The Akron Regional Air Quality Management Districtis offering $100 gift cards to people who switch from a gas-powered mower to a battery powered mower. The district says battery powered lawnmowers release no exhaust, mow quieter and require low maintenance.

Summit County Public Health Educator Dawn Meyers says people are used to gas-powered mowers so they don’t think about their environmental effects.

“But in reality there’s millions of small particles that we breathe in while we’re pushing that lawnmower around, and we’d like to see folks make the switch to that, which would be much healthier for themselves and for their neighbor.”

Interested residents have to pre-register and the program is limited to 100 households.

People interested in making the switch can buy a new battery powered mower and bring in the working gas-powered mower to be scrapped at one of three exchange events:

  • March 28, 2020 at the Portage County Combined General Health District 
  • April 4, 2020 at SCPH & at ReWorks HHWRC in Stow 
  • April 25, 2020 at Medina County Health Department in Medina 

You can find more information about the exchange events and pre-register at www.scph.org/air-quality/lawnmower-exchange

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Tanisha Thomas is majoring in journalism at Kent State University where she will be graduating this year in May. During her time at Kent State, she has written for The Burr Magazine and Uhuru Magazine, and produced and anchored for TV2. She is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Uhuru Magazine. In her down time, she enjoys playing Sims, discussing pop culture or curling up with her dog Lucky.