In her recent piece in USA Today, Laura Vanderkam takes an environmental stand against the family yard:

“Mowing itself requires fuel, just like our cars, with a similar impact on the environment. And all these woes are before you even get to the issue of water. According to Kress, maintaining non-native plants requires 10,000 gallons of water per year per lawn, over and above rainwater. That water doesn’t just show up by itself; it requires energy to get to your hose. In California, for example, the energy required to treat and move water amounts to 19 percent of total electricity use in the state.”

Vanderkam got me thinking. In her article, she states that maintaining a lawn is one of the most difficult – and therefore potentially environmentally unfriendly – activities one can associate with home ownership.

She interviewed Florida resident Diane Faulkner, who spent some time in Kenya and participated in a daily ritual of waking up at dawn to walk miles along a dried-up river toward a water source, then returning with a few gallons for cooking and washing.

When she returned to America, she asked herself: “How many gallons of water do I waste on that stinking lawn?”

And once the grass has been watered, she wondered, what else goes into keeping it maintained that’s bad for the planet? (Subquestion: How many people own push-mowers anymore, instead of their more convenient relatives, motorized mowers?) While a field of emerald, tailored grass is ubiquitous with owning any sized plot of land, taking care of it is anything but natural.

So, unless you own a sheep, you’re actually doing harm to the environment every time you water and cut the green patches in the front, and backyard. There are 21 million acres of lawn across the country.

In addition to the water waste and exhaust emissions from gas-powered mowers (and don’t even get me started on riding mowers), homeowners use more than 78 million pounds of pesticides each year to keep their front yard “green,” according to Stephen Kress of the National Audubon Society. He also states that weed killers should be banished; simply mowing the lawn removes the tops of weeds and wildflowers, making their stalks virtually undistinguishable from their grassy hosts.

As familiar as the lawn may be when picturing a traditional American neighborhood, think for a moment: What went into putting it there in the first place? Laura Ingalls Wilder aside, the grass was installed on your property, similar to the way your man-made house was. According to Kress, maintaining non-native plants requires 10,000 gallons of water per year per lawn – in addition to rainwater. Then there’s the hose. The water doesn’t flow through it because it wants to – it requires energy to get from pipes to hose. In California, for example, the energy required to treat and move water amounts to 19 percent of total electricity use in the state.

Says the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey, the average father of school-aged kids spends 1.6 hours a week on lawn and garden care – more time than he spends on reading, talking, playing or doing educational activities with his kids combined.

Do you think that politicians should start regulating your lawn?

Some facts:

• Inspectors are deployed to count the square footage of grass vs. wild plants; states are cutting teachers and police officers
• By 2020, California will face a shortfall of fresh water as great as the amount that all of its cities and towns together are consuming today
• By 2025, 1.8 billion”¨ people will live in conditions of absolute “¨water scarcity, and 65 percent of the world’s population will be water stressed
• To grow a ton of wheat, it takes 1,000 tons of water; the U.S is the largest exporter of wheat to the world; when we export a ton of our wheat, we are effectively including 100 tons of water in the bargain
• In the U.S, 21 percent of irrigation is achieved by pumping groundwater at rates that exceed the water’s ability to recharge
• There are 66 golf courses in Palm Springs; on average, they each consume over a million gallons of water per day
• Lake Meade (the source of 95 percent of water for Las Vegas) will be dry in the next 4 to 10 years
• Xeriscaping is a form of landscaping that uses zero water
• You can also turn your yard into a vegetable garden; use dense plantings and heavy mulch to keep the weeds down, and put a drip irrigation on a timer for lower maintenance
• And for lawn jockeys, in Southern California verdolagas (a type of purslane) looks like lawn and will grow with zero or infrequent watering over most places

Then there’s Faulkner. She redid her lawn with rocks and hearty plants such as Confederate Jasmine, arranged to look like an English garden. “I don’t have to mow, I don’t have to water, I don’t have to trim,” she says. Her water bill has gone from $80-$90/month to $20. But then again, you could always just spray paint your lawn, too.

Is the grass always greener, eco-friends? Let us know in the comments.

Image: Matt McGee

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The healthy fruits and vegetables you feed your little one to make him grow “big and strong” could actually be injuring his brain, according to a recent study published in the journal Pediatrics. Scientists have discovered that exposure to pesticides called organophosphates – which are known to damage the brain’s nerve connections – increases the likelihood that a child will suffer from the learning disorder Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), which 4.5 million children have been diagnosed with in the United States.

This is yet another finding in a growing series of disturbing studies which link diseases to environmental chemicals that run rampant in our everyday lives. The lowdown: the study was led by Maryse Bouchard in cooperation with researchers at The University of Montreal and Harvard University. They analyzed the levels of pesticide residue in urine samples from 1,139 children ages 8-15. The samples containing the highest level of dialkyl phosphates, which are the breakdown of organophosphate pesticides, also had the highest incidence of ADHD. Additionally, nearly 95 percent of the children had at least one byproduct of a pesticide detected in their urine.

According to the National Academy of Sciences, the children most likely accumulated the pesticides in their systems through dietary exposure, and by eating fruits and vegetables that were sprayed with the pesticides while growing as crops. Bouchard recommends feeding children organic produce whenever possible, and washing, scrubbing and peeling all fruits and vegetables to help remove toxic residues. Additionally, parents should avoid using bug sprays in or around their home.

As an added FYI: strawberries, raspberries and peaches contain the highest amounts of pesticides, so be certain to buy organic in these varieties.

Image: Dive Master King 2000

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Here’s an article to stop you in your tracks.

Ecotextile News reports on the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India -an area troubled by its farmer suicide problem – and the tribal area of Adilabad, Andhra Pradesh. For those of you not aware that watchdogs are necessary, you need only read on.

According to Coral Rose, founder of Eco-Innovations, companies like Designs LLC, (doing business as Jonäno), CSE, Inc. (d/b/a Mad Mod) and Pure Bamboo, LLC are guilty of deceptively labeling and advertising their products as made of bamboo fiber when in fact they’re made of rayon. Welcome to the Wild West of sustainable consumer goods.

The companies have been charged with making false and unsubstantiated “green” claims, stating that their finished products retain the natural antimicrobial properties of the original bamboo plant. Litigation continues against the fourth company The M Group, Inc., d/b/a Bamboosa, and its principals.

Susan Donaldson, senior buyer for eco retailer VivaTerra (full disclosure: VivaTerra is an EcoSalon sponsor), says the takeaway from this controversy is that our current system for labeling a product leaves a lot to be desired.

“Whether a material is called ‘bamboo’ or ‘rayon from bamboo’, neither one tells us much about the lifecycle of the product,” says Donaldson. “What kind of energy is used making this item and how much? What kind of dyes? What are the workers treated like? What happens when you dispose of it?”

Still, Donaldson is optimistic about the bamboo controversy.

“I believe there still is a great opportunity with bamboo, and just as we are seeing such progress in the organic cotton industry, I hope that manufacturers of rayon made from bamboo can also transition to more sustainable processing.”

VivaTerra sources their bamboo textiles from a fair trade company that maintains a closed-loop, carbon-neutral manufacturing process and factory – one of many bamboo companies making real efforts to improve both transparency and eco-credibility.

In researching the issue further, I read this story about Zameen Organic, a farmer-owned, organic cotton trading and marketing company. Zameen grows and promotes Fairtrade, organic and pesticide-free cotton and works with farming communities in rural India through GOTS certification. The funds amassed from the venture will be used to strengthen sales teams across the US, Europe and India with the aim of building up a presence at retail level and in particular in high-street stores.

Ecotextile New says, “Now numbering more than 4,000, the farmers, who invest their own capital into Zameen, hold the most shares in the company and play a big part in shaping the policies as well as benefiting from shareholder dividends.”

For every ton of raw cotton Zameen buys from farmers, they set aside an organization development expense of 1,100 rupees (approximately US$24) to invest in Zameen. Last season, Zameen harvested around 374 tons of organic cotton.

Though not a total solution for the region, Zameen Organic has helped substantially with a decrease in suicide farmers whose crops have yielded nothing and land sharks still bilk them for 60% interest. Many men, seeing no hope in sight, go out into the fields that are supposed to support them, drink the farming pesticide and die.

Though the bamboo textile industry in many cases needs improvement, I believe that the more sustainable options these farmers have at their disposal, the better.

Image from the collection of the International Rice Research Institute

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