The nonprofit Powering Our Future launches a rebate program in New Castle County to encourage the purchase of electric lawn care tools, bikes and vehicle charging stations.
The program includes rebates of up to $50 for lawn care tools and $100 for electric bicycles or charging stations for electric vehicles bought between April 1 and December 31 of this year.
Executive Director Mike Smith says there are large-scale efforts to move towards rooftop solar and electric passenger vehicles, but when it comes to local air pollution, lawn tools contribute a huge amount.
Smith cites a study that found that a two-cycle gasoline-powered leaf blower spewed out more pollution than a 6,200-pound Ford F-150 pickup truck, meaning hydrocarbon emissions from 30 minutes of yard work is equal to about a 3,900-mile drive from Texas to Alaska in the truck.
“It’s a mindblowing statistic that doesn’t really make sense until you realize how grossly inefficient a lot of these two-cycle motors are," Smith says. "Many times they’re not actually even burning the gas, they’re just throwing the gas out of the motor and into the air. And unburned hydrocarbons are actually much worse than just burning the fuel itself."
And these tools are used just outside of people’s homes and schools.
“And there’s been studies that have shown that air pollution will sometime degrade people’s ability to have mental functioning and processing in the sense that maybe there won’t be as good test scores, they won’t be able to study and learn and absorb all the materials because they’re distracted or they’re hazy or they’re breathing hard because they just went outside during gym and had to run laps while someone was cutting grass outside,” Smith says.
He adds indoor gas stovetops and cooking with oil can drastically worsen the air quality in a person’s home too, even if only for a few minutes.
Smith says he expects around 300 to 600 rebate requests by the end of the year.
Rebate requests can be submitted at PoweringOurFutureDE.org.
