Salt Lake City offering up to $500 for residents to swap gas-powered lawn equipment for electric tools
SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) — Gas-powered leaf blowers are small devices, but they produce an eye-popping amount of pollution on the Wasatch Front.
To run one of the two-stroke engine machines for an hour produces roughly as much pollution as driving a car from Salt Lake City to San Francisco, a journey of more than 700 miles.
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In an effort to combat this type of pollution, Salt Lake City is currently hosting its first city-run landscaping equipment exchange.
“Our city officials and Mayor Mendenhall really wanted to provide tools directly to residents, which is why we are running our own program this year,” said Sophia Nicholas, deputy director of the city’s sustainability department.
This week, residents can enter a lottery to recycle their gas-powered lawn mower, leaf blower or weed whacker and get vouchers for new, cleaner-running electric tools.
“The whole goal of this program is to help improve air quality,” Nicholas said. “Gas-powered landscaping equipment is pretty polluting, string trimmers and leaf blowers in particular.”
The budget for the city’s program is $250,000. The lottery opened to Salt Lake City residents on Monday, and it’s set to run through Sunday. Already, 200 people have applied, Nicholas said.
How the program works
Two types of people can enter. The first are those who want to exchange gas-powered lawn mowers, weed whackers or leaf blowers.
If chosen in the lottery, these residents can exchange their lawn mowers for a $300 voucher or give up their gas-guzzling weed whacker/leaf blower for a $100 voucher.
“You can also combine your equipment for up to $500 in vouchers,” Nicholas said.
Residents will be able to exchange their gas-powered equipment and redeem their vouchers at either the Ace Hardware locations at 612 East 400 South and 477 North 300 West, or the Home Depot location at 328 West 2100 South.
“It’s not first-come, first-served, it’s a lottery system,” Nicholas said. “So make sure you pick the vendor that works best for you.”
Those without gas-powered equipment to recycle can also enter the lottery. The program offers these residents a $150 voucher for an electric lawnmower and a $50 voucher for a string trimmer/leaf blower.
According to Nicholas, applicants chosen to be part of the program will be notified by May 17.
Reducing pollution
In past years, Salt Lake City has worked with the Utah Division of Air Quality on similar lawn-care exchange programs. Currently, the DAQ offers a program for commercial lawn care companies with credits up to $3,000 for businesses that recycle gas-powered leaf blowers, trimmers and chainsaws.
Bryce Bird, director of the Utah Division of Air Quality, told ABC4.com earlier this year that pollutants from two-stroke engines are key contributors to the ozone pollution that plagues the Wasatch Front in the hot summer months.
“They really produce high amounts of air pollution for the work that we get out of them, and there’s a great alternative — that is to move to electric equipment,” he said.
According to the Department of Environmental Quality, pollution linked to lawn equipment contributes about 8 tons of volatile organic compound pollution per day on the Wasatch Front. That’s more than the combined emission from all of the Great Salt Lake oil refiners combined.
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