DENVER — Starting in the summer of 2025, Colorado will restrict the use of gas-powered lawn equipment on government and public property during the summer months.
This is the latest effort by state officials to lessen the impact of noise and pollution from lawn equipment like mowers and leaf blowers. The Colorado Public Interest Research Group unveiled an interactive map that allows users to track their county's progress toward eliminating gas-powered lawn equipment.
According to CoPIRG, Colorado is a leading state in taking action to accelerate the move to quieter and cleaner equipment.
"Our map shows over 200 policies and programs in 26 states. Colorado shows over 20 policies and programs that we have in our state that are helping accelerate this transition towards cleaner, quieter electric lawn equipment," said Kirsten Schatz, an advocate with CoPIRG.
These policies include a 30% discount on electric lawn equipment at participating retailers statewide.
"It is a combination of education and incentives that will help Colorado residents and businesses make this transition to cleaner, quieter, electric equipment as quickly as possible," said Schatz.
Jordan Champalou learned early on that just running a business isn't enough to separate yourself from your competition.
"I would say about two-thirds of my customers reach out to me specifically because I am fully electric," said Champalou.
Champalou owns and operates Electric Lawn Care, a fully electric lawn care service operating in the Westminster area. Champalou's mowers, blowers, saws, and weed-whackers are all battery-powered.
"Starting off on the roof of my trailer, I have 640 watts of solar panels. What that does is it recharges my big solar generator battery that recharges all of my smaller batteries throughout the day," said Champalou. "I have not plugged in my trailer into the grid for three months. It has been completely self-sustained. It's been completely charging itself, running itself. I never have to tap into house power, to the grid, to anything."
Champalou admits that the current state of electric equipment isn't quite on par with gas-powered, but it gets the job done in a much safer way.
"I definitely think that while gas-powered is still more powerful and maybe can still put out better performance on some ends, I definitely think that if the start of electric is where we're at right now, it's only going to get better. We're only going to find more solutions. We're only going to make better equipment," he said.
For now, businesses like Champalou's are leading by example with the hope that more businesses like his will soon follow.
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