A green rolling lawn is a great feature of a house or park, and generally lawns are associated with nature and the outdoors.
But, how good are lawns for the environment? Sure, they are better than paving, and provide a much more pleasant place to be than the starkness of tar and concrete, but maintaining all the lush greenery comes at a price.
There are over 20 million acres of lawn in the US and together they consume between 30% and 60% of an urban area's fresh water reserves through the continuous need for watering. Lawns also need to be trimmed frequently, and if this is done by powered mower, there is a significant impact on the environment. Lawn mowers are not subject to the same controls as cars, thus a lawn mower will, on average, produce as much pollution in one hour as a car will when driven 45 miles.
That's not to mention all the synthetic fertiliser that is flushed into the groundwater reserves after all the watering.
Therefore, next time you are lying on the nicely trimmed green grass of your backyard, spare a thought for the impact this luxury has on the planet.
