Company Creates 'Green' Propane-Powered Lawn Tool
Non-Gasoline Trimmer Costs About $200
POSTED: Tuesday, March 3, 2009
UPDATED: 11:40 am EST March 4,
2009
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A start-up company is offering propane-powered yard tools, helping Central Florida homeowners and lawn maintenance workers become less dependent on gasoline.
Americans use more than 800 million gallons of gasoline to mow and trim their lawns every year, prompting an entrepreneur to create the propane-powered motorized lawn tools.
"We're using a green fuel to operate our equipment," said Bernardo Herzer, founder of Lehr. "It has zero evaporative emissions. It doesn't have any ozone depleting potential. It doesn't hurt (aquifers), it's not a marine pollutant and as high as 90 percent of the propane used in this country is made in this country -- the other 10 percent is coming from Canada."
The Environmental Protection Agency said more than 17 million gallons of gas are spilled each year trying to refuel mowers and trimmers, which is more than all the oil spilled by the Exxon Valdez in the Gulf of Alaska.
"One of the main hassles people find about going green is it always seems to be more expensive. But in this case, they say that won't happen. In fact, they say this trimmer is competitively priced with any other gas trimmer," Local 6 News reporter Donald Forbes said.
The trimmers cost from $199 to $239, and the average run time is about two-and-a-half hours, but the company said the tools can idle for up to nine hours.
"This is not the end-all, but it sure is a step in the right direction," Herzer said.
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