Landscaping Pollution
Table of Contents
Air & Noise Pollution
Choosing the right equipment can make your time in nature much easier and more enjoyable. Our choices and reduce our emissions, noise pollution, and overall costs, while boosting plant growth and biodiversity.
The decibels (dB) listed on this page are colour coded to make it easier for people to understand at a glance how safe or dangerous the sound levels are for human hearing. The chosen rating system is based on the chart provided here by the CDC.
Sound Level Decibel (dB) Key
0-65 dB - Healthy
66-85 dB - Somewhat Loud
86-139 dB - Harmful to Hearing
Avoid long exposure without protection.
140+ dB Can Cause Hearing Loss
Wear protection or avoid all together.
Before You Start: Choosing the Right Biomes for Your Needs
When we think about the biomes we want to cultivate it's much easier to make plans like where to plant certain thing, build certain amenities, and even what types of tools we'll need.
You may realize you want to avoid a lawn all together, but that some grassy walkways for wandering through your meadow or tending your crops will be easier. For this it may be handy to own a push real mower, for some low-impact maintenance.
"Common sounds that contribute to hearing loss:
Many of our everyday sounds are over 85 decibels – loud enough to cause hearing loss. As equipment ages, it can get louder when operated. Battery powered lawn equipment tends to be quieter than gas powered equipment, but these may still exceed safe noise limits.
Some examples of sound levels of common yard and home equipment are (reorganized for this page according to loudness):
Edger: 86 dB
Vacuum cleaner: 87 dB
Riding lawn mower: 90 dB
Air compressor: 92 dB
Wet/dry vac: 94 dB
Weed eater: 96 dB
Leaf blower: 99 dB
Pressure washer: 100 dB
Hedge trimmer: 103 dB
Chainsaw: 110 dB
Noise has the most impact on the person using the equipment, but the sound level can be damaging to others as far as 50 feet away. When several pieces of equipment operate at the same time – as on a sunny weekend in the neighborhood or when the landscape management crew shows up at the office building – noise level escalates. In this situation, noise levels can exceed 85 dB at a distance of 200 feet or more from the equipment." - ForsythNews
By choosing equipment that doesn't blast noise pollution, you will protect yourself and those you live with, including neighboring families, but especially wildlife who don't get to hide way in quiet places.
I was once very excited when a hole was dug in my wildlife garden, and the whole family was eager to see what species our new neighbors would turn out to be. Within the week, a lawncare crew blasted their machines around the area for over an hour. We never saw any more activity around the whole, and it instantly became overgrown with no signs of life.
If your reason for gardening is to see more wildlife, or bird watch, then having loud equipment is a great way to scare nesting birds away from a nest, and never come back.
Studies have found that noise pollution can increase the stress hormones in wildlife, as well as decrease their ability to feed and breed. Humans suffer similar health consequences, including higher rates of panic attacks.
In addition, fossil-fuel powered machinery helps drive climate change (Mowers make up 5% of the USA's emissions! That's about 1/3rd of the emissions from the USA's agriculture industry). As the world faces energy shortages, it seems particularly poor planning to use these resources to mow down carbon-storing plants.
Even worse is they can kick up huge amounts of air pollution, hamper soil health, and kill delicate wildlife.
What to Avoid & Better Alternatives
Leaf & Litter Control
Avoid
Leaf Blowers 110 dB Gasoline powered are the worst, blowing small particle pollution, pesticides, herbicides, fungacides, fungus, bacteria and fossil fuel fumes.
Get
Rakes provide a good source of exercise (try to strengthen you body evenly and avoid injury by switching your dominant hand from time to time). By raking manually you can see and pick out plastic debris, or rescuing any animals.
Brooms can be used next on patios, drives, or pavers to create a tidier look.
Mowing Grass
Avoid
Lawn Mowers 90dB "A typical gas mower, for instance, can emit the same amount of VOCs and NOx -- key precursors to smog -- in an hour as a typical car driven 45 miles, according to the EPA." "A four stroke lawnmower operating for one hour equates to a vehicle traveling for 500 miles."
Get
You don't need all three. These are listed from quietest and most eco-friendly to less.
Push Reel Mowers 54-55dB are human-powered mowers with much lower sound ranges.
Cordless Electric Mower (reel) 56 dB
Cordless Electric Mower (rotary) 59 dB
Trimming & Edging
Avoid
Weed Whackers 96dB These break off pieces of plastic throughout the garden and nearby roads/paths.
Hedge Trimmer 103 dB These not only damage hearing, but cause serious carnage to plants and animals. By slicing at total random through all parts of the plants, thousands of tiny lacerations are created which puts your plants at risk of serious health complications including insect attack, viral and fungal infections.
Get
Hand-Held Trimmers These help keep your hands and arms strong. By getting up close to your plant, you can push leaves out of the way and trim at the bases of stems, twigs, and branches instead of ripping them up blender style like motorized trimmers do. This is healthier for your garden because you are less likely to harm beneficial insects, or invites infections, diseases or parasites into the plants. These can also be used on grasses.
Leaf Blower Bans
This article mentions rebates being used to help low-income workers make the switch to quieter, cleaner, electric equipment.
Light Pollution
Light pollution is a growing health hazard for humans, animals, and even plants! Light pollution spreads from cities across landscapes getting into migratory routes, national parks, beaches, and other places where it can cause serious disruption to the mating, feeding, and migratory habits of countless species.
Light pollution disrupts our sleep cycles, causing problems such as obesity, cancer, and other problems, but humans at least have the option to install curtains or cover our eyes when we want to sleep. Wildlife increasingly faces glaring and flashing lights that they can't escape. It can disorient nocturnal birds who then smash into windows and die, or it can throw them off their migratory paths so that they starve and fail to find mating partners. Baby turtles on beaches follow artificial lights inland where they get lost or crushed by cars. Countless insects are lured by bright city lights were they die instead of continuing their lifecycles in the country as food for other species. Fireflies and other bioluminescent species fail to breed every year putting them at greater risk of extinction, a problem that is felt all along the food chain.
Calls to Action
Level 1-3
Ensure that Lights are Only On When Needed this can be done by manually turning them on and off as you use them or when expecting guests/when they go home. Alternatively you can install motion sensors
Only Light the Area that Needs Light Paths, steps, doorways, driveways and roads often need some light to be safe. Hooded lights can be directed to only light the needed space, instead scattering light horizontally where it can blind drivers and wildlife. Most of all you should avoid lights that face upwards as these are particularly dangerous for flying animals such as owls and other nocturnal birds.
Be No Brighter than Necessary Lights are constantly being designed as brighter, with the theory that "brighter means better!" but this is a problem on multiple levels. Bright light damages our eyes, and going from a dark environment to being flashed by bright lights doesn't give our eyes proper time to safely adjust. If we are driving this is particularly dangerous, as it takes a while for our eyes to adjust to darkness again, leaving us and animals temporarily blind, increasing the chances of accidents and death.
Minimize Blue Light Emissions can be particularly problematic to bioluminescent species such as fireflies who are already dying out quickly.
Eliminate Upward-Directed Light Lights that face upward are particularly disruptive to bird migrations, but can harm other animals too. They also contribute to our increasing inability to see the stars at night (something that was very important to our ancestors and their cultures). Perhaps worst of all is that they contribute to energy-related emissions without contributing any use to anyone.
Don't use strobing lights! These are particularly disorienting and blinding to animals including humans.
Avoid Fireworks The brightness and sounds they produce cause serious distress, panic attacks, and even PTSD flashbacks for veterans, war refugees, autistic individuals, pets, and wildlife. Some wildlife literally die of fright because of fireworks, while others will abandon their nests, causing their offspring to starve to death.
Talk to Neighbors about light trespass and eco-friendly alternatives to currently lighting. Again, this might just involve putting their outdoor lights on a motion sensor or timer. Turning their lights off when they get home or go to bed.
Level 3
Ask Local Leaders, Utility Companies, & Businesses to mandate and install wildlife friendly lighting on streets and buildings. This might include putting hoods over existing road lights to that they only light the road instead of into nearby bedroom windows or up at the sky.
Ask Gas Station and Shopping Center Managers to replace, reorient, or hood halogen lights that face roadways or into forests.
Level 4
Resources for Wildlife- & People-Friendly Lighting
Click the following links to learn more about choosing appropriate lighting, as well as model laws.
Organizations
Pesticides
This class of chemicals can include natural and synthetic chemicals. They may seem like a simple solution, but they are causing havoc on the environment. Many cause cancer in people, pets, and are known to cause reproductive harm in wildlife. In places like the Amazon, banned pesticides are being used on livestock feed that is shipped to customers in places like the USA, China, and Europe. These are making their way up the food chain, and are now found in our blood and the milk of breastfeeding mothers.
Pesticides used on our farmland, gold courses, public parks and private gardens washes off with rain or snow, harming life in waterways and our oceans. Breastfeeding mothers in the Arctic Circle who eat large amounts of fish have been found to have alarmingly high amount of pesticides in their blood and milk.
Biological Arms Race:
The Unintended Cost of Pesticides
The Unintended Cost of Pesticides
Pesticides used on land and in aquaculture have proven to have one impressive effect: They help breed stronger, more pesticide-resistant parasites and pests!
Calls to Action
Level 1
Avoid Pesticides on land or plants that you care for or if you pay a gardener, ask them not to spray with pesticides
Levels 1-3
Buy Organic Produce and Products This might not mean "chemical free" but can help reduce the risk that dangerous chemicals were sprayed on these items.
Protect or Create Riparian Borders
Levels 3-4
Contact Your Representative and ask them to ban dangerous pesticides, ban the sale of these pesticides, and fund projects that help farmers with non-lethal pest control.
Click the Non-Lethal Pest Control button to learn about pesticide free methods to protect your plants, family, and more.