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Natural Lawn Care
Reasons to Choose Natural Lawn Care
Why make a change?
Your lawn can be a beautiful asset to your home and community: great to play or lie on, protecting the soil from erosion and filtering out urban pollutants. However, depending on how you care for it, your lawn can also be part of big environmental problems here in the Northwest.
Why mulch your grass clippings?
Grass clippings are overloading our compost facilities, when they could be fertilizing our lawns. Clippings make great fertilizer if left on the lawn. But the tons we throw away are overloading compost facilities in our growing region, causing odor problems and putting more collection trucks on busy streets.
Why water wisely?
Overwatering is bad for lawns, and it wastes a precious, limited resource. Lawn and garden watering make up more than 40% of our summer water use, when supplies are lowest. Plus, our region is growing all the time, requiring expensive new water sources. Much of this water is wasted through runoff, evaporation, overspray, or just plain over-watering. Watering too much invites lawn disease.
By watering wisely, we can have healthier lawns, keep our water bills down, and leave more water in the rivers for salmon and other wildlife.
Why use less fertilizers and pesticides?
Pesticides and fertilizers may pollute our lakes, streams, and groundwater. Rainwater can carry pesticides and fertilizers off our lawns into storm drains, and then into streams or lakes. Many pesticides may harm fish even in very small amounts.
Scientists found 23 pesticides in our urban streams -- more than in farming areas. Among the most commonly detected are two of the herbicides in “weed and feed” products.
Diazinon, a popular insecticide, is found at levels that may be harming fish, and it has been linked to waterfowl poisonings in King County.
Nutrients from fertilizers are also damaging some lakes. Many of these products are simply overused – proper lawn care practices can greatly reduce the need for chemicals.
Pesticides are expensive to dispose of, may be unhealthy, and are often unnecessary. In a review of 98 health studies related to the use of herbicides and other pesticides, half the studies found an increased cancer risk. These results are cause for concern and may be good reason to minimize use of pesticides around the home. In addition, safe disposal of pesticides is costly for ratepayers. Fortunately, good lawn care practices make it easy to reduce the use of hazardous products.
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