Electric Grass Cutting at Ecocut Lawns in Toronto

Ecocut Lawns, grass cutting in Toronto hired me for an hour. Not really. They emailed me to come check out their battery powered stuff.

So I got trained in their ways by Conrad, the general manager.  I thought it went well. It was electric.

Ecocut is a super clever, green ‘zero emissions’ lawn care service powered by renewable energy that’s been in business for about five years. The heaviest thing about the whippersnapper, and all their handheld tools, is the giant Lithium battery on the back-end of the rigs. It’s rechargeable, like me.

Why should people choose an electric lawn care service?

The people of Toronto love their beautiful lawns and gardens, but these aesthetically pleasing pastoral visions wreak havoc on the environment because for every hour an enthusiastic gardener runs a two-stroke gas-powered lawn mower, they produce the same pollution as driving a car for 320 kilometers. Did you ever think about that?

Ecocut started in 2010; they were the first sustainable lawn care business in Toronto, and used to have a solar powered trailer which powered the batteries between jobs, but after a couple seasons, when they sat down and did the math, it didnt add up.  Looking at the data they realized that hauling around the trailer was costing them more carbon than the solar rig and batteries saved them! So they ditched it and now they just charge a pile of batteries using Hydro. I love this story.

The batteries are 40V Lithium which tests show can run up to three times longer than Nicad batteries, and maintain consistent power throughout entire cycle. These units can be charged at anytime by which I mean they have no negative memory. They have battery charge level indicators which tell users exactly how much juice they have to use before they set out on a project.

Here’s Conrad showing me how to hold a whipper-snipper. He’s great.

In truth, Ecocut Lawns would be a great place to work. You’re outside doing stuff all day…  Sure it’s a bit of a work out, but not unpleasant as it would be working with smelly loud gas driven tools.  The green powered tools are lighter, quieter and relatively easy to use.

Much quieter than all the other mowers on the block, this intelligent property management business cuts noise and pollution to provide a sustainable, Eco-friendly service. This is green lawn care, because there isn’t a two cycle engine turning blades or blowing a fan.  Price wise this is positioned as a consumer’s choice premium service made for environmentally-minded clientele, but it really doesn’t cost much more than the big guys charge, and in some places its actually cheaper than the competition.

Last year the Ecocut guys made a deal with Greenworks, a battery-operated lawn-care equipment manufacturer who heard about them through Instagram (see, it works) and reached out to their business with an offer to modernize their gear. So now Ecocut field tests their equipment and gives them credibility and hard data concerning the lifetime of the tools at the contractor level, i.e. intense everyday use.

EcoCut Lawn Care  video on the homepage of the Ecocut website tells a story and does a pretty good job informing the public of the power of choice. Here’s a video of my training, heheh

The company survives on the support and loyalty of their clients who really seem to care about the environment and want to see Ecocut succeed in Toronto’s uniquely competitive grass cutting marketplace.

When you do the math, if these guys have already been in business for four years that means Ecocut has already prevented 30, 000 lbs. of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere, not to mention avoided mass tune-up waste, old air filters, oil changes or gasoline. The business is a clean machine.

Conrad told me the Ecocut Lawns business recycles their batteries responsibly (probably right back to Greenworks), and the only fossil fuel they use is in their truck which I think it mentions in the video they offset by purchasing Canadian carbon credits and that gives them the ability to boast of being 100% sustainable.

Conrad told me they would hire me, so I’ve always got that to fall back on.

I wanted to call this post, Raymi cuts your grass, literally.