We all know that planting and maintaining real grass lawns can be time consuming and expensive. You are probably aware of the cost involved in just watering your grass alone, but the cost of fertilizing your lawn might be higher than you realize.

The High Cost of Fertilizing
Did you know that Americans use about 3 million metric tons of fertilizer every year? Even worse, many homeowners tend to use too much fertilizer on their lawns at once. Runoff from rain and watering the grass goes into storm drains, ultimately polluting major waterways. This can drastically reduce the cleanliness of a water supply over time.

Most of the fertilizer used on lawns is synthetic fertilizer. The equivalent of one barrel of crude oil goes into producing 560 pounds of synthetic fertilizer, which means that we use about 11.8 million barrels of oil every year just to fertilize our lawns. That sounds rather shocking, doesn’t it? Can you imagine the effect it would have on our environment if we used 11.8 million barrels less of crude oil each year?

The environmental consequences of producing and using synthetic fertilizer only adds to the list or reasons to switch to synthetic grass. Synthetic grass costs less time and money to maintain, and doesn’t have the negative environmental impact that maintaining a real lawn can.

Is Synthetic Grass “Greener?”
Producing synthetic grass requires factory production, which requires the use of natural resources like oil. Fake grass is made from polyethylene and elastometric coatings. Though the manufacturing process requires oil, it’s still less oil intensive than maintaining a real lawn throughout the year.

Eco-Friendly Lawn Care
If you decide that you would rather stick with your real grass, there are things you can do to make your lawncare routine more environmentally friendly. For starters, use organic fertilizer instead of synthetic. Organic fertilizer doesn’t contain the high levels of ammonia that its synthetic counterpart does. Also consider composting your grass clippings instead of trashing them. Opt to use a push mower instead of a gas-guzzling gas powered mower.

For more information on ditching your fertilizer routine for a synthetic lawn, contact our Artificial Turf Supply Commercial and Residential Division today.