Are You Sending Your Money to the Land Fill?

If you like to spend your hard earned money on lawn waste bags, cram them full of grass clippings, and then drag them to the curb for pick up, don’t bother reading this. However, if you wish that you could make your lawn cutting chore a little easier, a little cheaper, and help the earth while you are at it, you might want to read on. 

First of all, lawn waste bags are an unnecessary waste of paper.  We may have to cut the grass, but we shouldn’t have to cut down trees to use for hauling away those clippings! Grass clippings are made mostly of moisture and nitrogen. You pay good money, in the form of fertilizers, to put nitrogen on your lawn to make it grow, be lush, and have a healthy green color. Why haul away all the fertilizer that you’ve paid for? Don’t waste more of your own money by bagging your lawn clippings which is a completely unnecessary process.  Leave it on your lawn and not at the local landfill.

The most common misconception that leads to homeowners bagging grass clippings is the thought that clippings contribute to lawn thatch. This could not be any more incorrect. Lawn clippings contribute less than 3% to a lawns thatch layer. The thatch layer is primarily made up of un-decomposed dead stems and roots that become matted. So what causes thatch you might ask? Stressing the lawn is the number one reason for lawn thatch build up. Ok, great you say, so, what stresses the lawn? The primary stressors are cutting your lawn too short or cutting more than one-third of the total height at any one cutting. Our turf lawns are not putting greens. Turf type lawns should be cut around two and one-half inches to three inches in height. Other stressors are too much water, too little water, too much nitrogen fertilizer or too much compaction, all of which can all lead to an unhealthy lawn.  Raising the height at which your mower cuts will make your lawn healthier by encouraging deeper roots which, in turn, make your lawn require less water and be more drought resistant. You’ll save water by cutting your turf higher!

Grass clippings are high in nitrogen and mulching them right back into your lawn makes great sense. You can save yourself the back-breaking effort of bagging, you can save the landfills from unnecessary yard waste and you can put those hard earned nutrients right back into your soil. The only time you will need to remove excess clippings is when you let the lawn go uncut and it gets too tall. Bagging your lawn clippings, on average, can add up to 30 percent more time to an already tedious chore. Often the lawn mower is left running while filling the yard waste bags. This adds fuel to the list of items you are wasting…in addition to time, money, paper, etc. etc. If you feel that you must bag your clippings, consider making a compost pile somewhere on your premises.

Yard waste makes up around 20 percent of all waste material at landfills. Also, bagged grass consumes far more energy by the need of large trucks to haul this unnecessary yard waste to the dumps.  You can be the envy of your neighbors by being a better educated and responsible steward of your lawn. Your overall lawn will be healthier, your lawn will remain greener longer and you won’t need to work as hard. All of these benefits and you’ll be helping our environment all at the same time. Dump the bag!