Cut the smog: Trade-in program starts for gasoline mowers

Twenty-one neatly stacked lawn mowers in a North Las Vegas junkyard are easy to overlook amid towering metal scrap heaps and hundreds of cast-off engines.

But air quality officials would say that scrapping this modest number of gasoline mowers will put a noticeable dent in ozone pollution.

And they hope that 1,000 people will swap their gasoline-driven mowers for battery-powered ones, reducing low-lying ozone substantially in the valley during the hot summer months when the pollutant is the most intense.

Residents can trade their fossil-fuel mowers for cordless electric machines through a program launched Monday by Clark County's Air Quality and Environmental Management Department.

"It will help us with the ground-level ozone," said Brenda Manlove Williams, agency spokeswoman. "It is also about expanding our citizens' awareness."

Thanks to a $250,000 state grant, 1,000 electric mowers are available through the manufacturer at a discount.

The trade is not completely tit-for-tat. A resident also must pay $99. But agency chiefs said that a person can get a new electric mower with an estimated retail price of $400 in return for the junkiest used gasoline mower.

And the owner can feel good about making the air more breathable, especially for people with respiratory ailments, Williams said.

Ozone is a colorless gas created by chemical reactions between nitrogen oxides and volatile organics. Vapors from gasoline, paints, car exhaust and burning wood are among the culprits.

Intense heat and sunlight cause ozone to concentrate near the ground, where it can make breathing more difficult and inflame the lung tissue, according to federal studies.

A typical gasoline mower will spew more air pollution in a year than 43 late-model cars, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

"If this community steps up to the plate and swaps out 1,000 gas-powered lawn mowers through this program, that would be the equivalent of taking 40,000 cars off our streets," Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid said in a statement.

The program's start is timely, given the advisory issued in response to the onslaught of smoke from the California wildfires, said Erik Pappa, county spokesman.

Those who are interested in trading mowers must show proof of residency with a driver's license or Nevada ID, Manlove Williams said. They take their old mowers to AAEQ's recycling yard in North Las Vegas and can expect to receive the electric mowers from the manufacturer within 10 days.

The electric mowers have detachable batteries that can be charged inside the home if the weather is extremely hot, Manlove Williams said, responding to questions about whether the batteries might fail to charge in triple-digit temperatures.

Owners have a two-week buyer's remorse clause that allows them to retrieve their old mowers if they're dissatisfied with the electric ones, said Scott Stohlberg, AAEQ's president and CEO.

Pointing to the mowers he got Monday at his recycling yard, Stohlberg smiled and said that after two weeks, the mowers will be dismantled and melted.

The county wants to make sure the mowers are not rebuilt and put back into circulation, he said, because that would defeat the program's purpose.

"That's why they went to a metal processor," Stohlberg said. "I'm looking at the scrap metal."

He must document selling the motors and frames to foundries. The plastic parts will be thrown away because of the limited market for recycling plastics, he said.

Stohlberg said he sells steel at $400 a ton and aluminum at 35 cents a pound, and he won't make a huge bundle from 1,000 mowers.

"The key is getting these things off the street and the pollution they generate," he said.

The program is experimental and might be expanded next year if it goes over well with the public, Manlove Williams said.

"I think it would be something that, if it's successful, we would want to repeat it," she said.