Council tackles landscaping emissions with plan to reboot equipment trade-in program

People still clinging to battered old lawn equipment may soon see opportunity for an upgrade, as City Council looks to reboot a “cash for clunkers” exchange program to incentivize eco-friendly landscaping.

The resolution, sponsored by Council Member Ryan Alter and passed March 7, directs staff to explore new approaches to the city’s electric landscaping rebate program, suggesting an equipment recycling program in which gas-powered lawnmowers, leaf blowers and weed trimmers could be traded in for their electric counterparts. Proponents say the model is a better use of funding in a market that is already leaning electric for many consumers, with similar programs in cities like Toledo, Louisville and Salt Lake City setting a precedent for success.

Alongside greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides, gas-powered lawn equipment is especially pernicious in its emission of fine particulate matter, an EPA-regulated toxin known to cause respiratory illnesses. As Travis County flirts with noncompliance with newly passed federal air quality standards, the resolution’s proponents say electrification of the landscaping sector, particularly at the commercial level, grows increasingly urgent.

As cities and states across the country make moves to ban gas-powered landscaping equipment, efforts in Texas have been hampered by the state’s own Legislature. The city of Dallas, which was poised to enact a full ban of gas-powered equipment last year, was driven back to the drawing board as Gov. Greg Abbott signed a state law preventing any city, county or school district from discriminating against products based on their fuel source.

Currently, Austin Energy’s Instant Savings program attempts to incentivize electric purchases, offering rebates of $30 for lawnmowers and $15 for weed cutters and leaf blowers during select months at Home Depot and Lowe’s locations across the city. Still, critics say the program is poorly structured to influence consumers in a market where first-time buyers are often choosing electric anyway.

“I’m in favor of landscape and equipment rebates, just not the way that they’re structured now,” said longtime environmentalist Scott Johnson at last week’s Electric Utility Commission meeting. Johnson, who has led electric mower trade-in campaigns since as early as 1996, hopes the city will recapture his success through a robust retirement and recycling program, in which more competitive rebates are awarded to those who bring in their gas-powered lawn equipment for exchange.

“The cost benefit in terms of carbon reductions and in terms of cost per dollar to incentivize the program is certainly better when you have a scrappage or retirement program,” Johnson said. “Staff is in discussion with Austin Resource Recovery to find a way to do that scrappage part, and perhaps they could take the lead on it. … They certainly have contacts to get the mowers to the correct place to have them melted down and reformed into other materials.”

Johnson hopes the program will gather momentum as Council awaits an Environmental Investment Plan currently in the works at the city’s Joint Sustainability Committee and slated for discussion in May. He says the next challenge will be tackling the commercial sector, where prohibitive equipment costs are making the electric transition more difficult.

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