energy efficient green gardening tools

A single gas-powered leaf blower can emit as much pollution in one hour as dozens of cars operating for the same period… Gas leaf blowers are typically very energy inefficient machines.

But it's not only the leaf blowers... Mowers, tillers, trimmers, snow-blowers, leaf blowers, shredders, and other garden and outdoor equipment can also be very energy inefficient. See EPA fact sheet.

Leaf blowers are so noise-polluting that some communities have banned them or restricted their use to those with low noise levels (say, below 65 decibels) and those with low emission levels.

New gas gardening tools energy efficiency

It's true that old gas gardening tools were much more energy guzzling than new units. Mowers and gas snow blowers are good examples of that... And it is true that new gas gardening equipment is much more energy efficient. New mowers or new snow blowers can save up to 80% energy, when compared to older units...

But even new gas equipment compliant with new emission standards – in USA, the CARB and EPA 50-state emissions standards – is still polluting, noisy, and far from being a good environmental and energy-efficient option.

The energy efficiency of electric gardening tools

Electric gardening and yard equipment is an obviously better option than gas units in what concerns their environmental impact. But they also have limitations.

The electricity on which they run on may come from power plants using fossil fuels... And although the effectiveness of some electric garden equipment is good, there are also many cases where electrics aren't powerful enough for average jobs (snow blowers, for instance), or where their use by millions of homeowners is rather questionable in they usefulness. Be critical on this issue.

Alternatives to powered garden equipment

The best alternatives to powered outdoor equipment can be, in many cases, manual garden tools. Our innate tendency to search for comfort and to clone the options of the social groups we belong to, leads us to accept powered machines that overall do not really reduce in a significant degree physical effort.

So, if you are physically fit enough, and your yard is small or mid-sized, and you do not have large gardening needs, some manual tools (mowers, shears, etc.) may well be the best option, not only environmentally but also economically.

In fact, some gas and other powered tools aren't as effective at reducing physical effort as we sometimes think they are. If we consider the physical effort they require and also the time needed for their maintenance, tuning-up, etc. they become as physically demanding as the use of manual garden tools…

Pruners, push leaf sweepers, leaf rakes, etc., etc. can replace - in many cases, for average yard needs - expensive and rather over-killing machines. Just choose the right tool. That's important: manual gardening tools vary in their ease of use and effectiveness (there are very good but also low-effective and low-quality tools). A leaf rake or a manual push mower, for instance, can be very effective, and easy to use, or not…

Manual Garden Tools For customer reviews with ratings on gardening tools, you may take a look at the Amazon.com Best Seller Gardening Tools, with customers reviews and ratings; or, for more specific tools, also in Amazon:

- Axes
- Cultivators and Tillers
- Forks
- Grass Shears
- Hand Hedgers
- Hand Shears
- Garden Hoes
- Loppers
- Machetes
- Manual Lawn Aerators
- Manual Weeders
- Picks
- Pruners
- Rakes
- Saws
- Scissors
- Shovels
- Spades
- Trowels
- Tool Sets