If you're concerned about reducing your carbon footprint by cutting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions caused by your regular activities, there are a number of ways you can go about this. You might opt for public transport wherever possible, and you might have filled your home with energy efficient appliances. But what about your backyard? It's possible to mow your lawn while only producing a small volume of greenhouse gas (and for smaller backyards, no greenhouse gas at all). So how can you cut your greenhouse gas emissions while still cutting your lawn?

For Smaller Backyards

A manual cylinder mower can require a fair amount of effort in some instances. When there's a large patch of lawn to be cut, or when the grass is excessively long, then you're going to work up a sweat. When it comes to small lawns that are cut regularly, then a manual cylinder mower is most definitely an environmentally friendly choice. No petrol (or electricity) is required and your forward motion causes the internal cylinder of sharp blades to pass over the grass. It's perhaps a somewhat old fashioned choice, but can be a valid one if you want to reduce your carbon footprint. The key is mowing to a schedule so that the grass is never too long.

For Larger Backyards

Another choice is decidedly more technologically advanced. Just as you can have an automatic robot vacuum cleaner for your home, you can have an automatic robot lawn mower for your backyard. It spends most of its time in a weather-resistant charging dock, emerging to mow your lawn as per the timer you set, or manually deployed as needed. It's electric, so no petrol is required (sharply decreasing its greenhouse emissions), and after the initial setup, all you need to do is empty its grass catcher when full and to remove large pieces of debris that might have blown into your backyard. The initial setup involves burying a sensor wire around the perimeter of your backyard so the automatic mower knows the boundaries of the space to be mowed.

For Rural Properties

A manual lawn mower won't be of much assistance on a rural property, and it's too large a space for an automatic lawn mower to handle. You might think that ride on mowers are the best choice, and you'd be correct. But most of them need petrol, and since you want to cut down on greenhouse emissions while cutting your lawn, you'll need a specific type of ride on mower. Just as you can buy a hybrid car, you can buy a hybrid, ride-on lawn mower. The specifications vary, but you can find a hybrid, ride-on mower with the drive powered by an electric motor while the petrol engine in fact generates this electricity, resulting in far less greenhouse emissions than a standard ride on mower.

Reducing your carbon footprint requires a multi-pronged attack, and it's not too difficult to make your backyard a key battleground.

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