Heard of global warming? Well, lawns cool your environment... when compared to bare ground, turf will reduce the surrounding surface temperature by 15°C and a neighbourhood of 8 average lawns has the cooling effect of 70 tonnes of air conditioning. Twice the cooling provided by the air conditioners of those same 8 homes!
Grass has to be the most efficient filter mother nature has ever provided... grass absorbs CO2, ozone, and all sorts of other poisonous gasses, converting them to oxygen. In fact, 25 square metres of lawn will produce enough oxygen to meet the air quality needs of a family of four!
In addition to the air, it is estimated that grass traps 12 million tonnes of dust and particulate each and every year, filtering the pollutants as the dust is washed back into the soil.
And maybe your lawn's biggest contribution to the environment is to cleanse our water supply as the water washes and carries the many pollutants through the roots of your lawn.
A 100 square metres of lawn can have a maze of 500 million km of roots which trap pollutants before they reach and pollute our ground water supply. With the help of soil microbes, grass converts most of these pollutants into harmless organic compounds that build up our soils to support more life.
Grass certainly cannot take the credit for all of this good news, but it does seem that your lawn is one of mother nature's hardest working and least appreciated children.
Source: Western Sod.
