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And now they are about to ban.... lawnmowers!
It doesnt stop in this fine city of ours!
My god...
| quote: | Toronto could be looking at an outright ban on polluting two-stroke engines for lawn care equipment three years from now.
That was the word from Toronto's executive committee, as it considered a plan to phase out the equipment for city workers by 2013.
The city is looking at getting rid of the fume-spewing motors as a part of its plan to fight climate change. While all internal combustion motors produce particulate and greenhouse gases, the venerable two-stroke motor used to power lawn mowers, hedge trimmers and leaf blowers is a particularly bad offender.
A 2001 report from Toronto's medical officer of health showed that a two-stroke engine manufactured a year earlier could emit nearly 500 times as many hydrocarbons, 26 times the amount of carbon monoxide and 49 times as much particulate as a car made in the same year.
The executive committee approved the plan, but also decided to look at ways to encourage Torontonians to abandon the motors for either more efficient motors or manual lawnmowers and other devices.
Committee member Howard Moscoe moved a motion to look at taking a more aggressive approach - but not immediately.
Under his amendment, the city will review the question for regulating the devices in three years.
"The city will go ahead with it when people are ready for it," said Moscoe.
"The fact of the matter is that almost every home in the city has a lawn that needs to get cut. And more than half of the lawnmowers have two-stroke motors. The pollution is huge - much more than anyone realizes. You could drive a car to Windsor and back and spew less pollutants."
But he made it clear that the city wouldn't likely contemplate an immediate ban. He and other councillors pointed to the slow phase-in that of Toronto's pesticide bylaw, which took several years to fully enact a bylaw making it illegal to use pesticides on a lawn.
"Banning something outright is probably not the way to do it - but gradually bleeding people, to the point where it needs to happen, is part of our job," said Moscoe. |
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