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Mowing down air pollution Unpleasant things have always kept Marjorie King of a mission. Ten years ago, her brother suffered a severe head injury in a car crash, so King became a traffic safety consultant and started Head Injury Prevention, Inc., a non-profit devoted to promoting the use of seat belts. Five years ago, she began suffering from chronic migraines and asthma-like breathing problems intensified by bad air, so King, 49, decided to start another company, this time on the Internet. Her Internet address, www.reelmowersetc.com has been up for two weeks, marketing King's engine-less reel lawn mowers. Reel lawn mowers were used before gas-powered lawn mowers. Recently a few companies have begun manufacturing them again, but in a much-improved form. The new ones are lighter, have sharper blades and are easier to push than the old ones, King said. And compared to today's gas-powered mowers, they're safer - for the environment and the user - easier to push, and keep better care of the lawn by cutting and spraying the grass, rather than pulling and coughing it out in ugly clumps. They're cheaper, too, King said. Her mowers range from $89 to $150, whereas gas and electric-powered mowers usually start somewhere into he $200 range. "This is going to be very important in this area this summer," King said. "I think it's really important that we think about how we do what we do." Some parts of the county are still in violation of federal health standards for smog. Gas-powered lawn and garden equipment generates an estimated 10 tons of pollution per day in the Bay Area, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. King sells mine models of reel mowers, all manufactured by Great States Corporation in Indiana. "I don't have much competition," she said. "There's someone that sells a German reel mower on the Internet but he has just one model and it is imported from Germany." King said she studied the lawn mower market for a year before building her web site. "I went around to all the big chains and nobody had reel mowers on the floor," she said. With cities and counties facing fines up to $10,000 per day if they don't reduce the waste sent to landfills 50 percent by the year 2000, "grasscycling" or "mulching" mowers have special blades that cut the grass finely, so that it doesn't end up in clumps that have to be trashed. Reel mowers cut the grass vertically and horizontally, King said, which makes them much better for mulching than a standard gas-powered or electric mower. Like a true entrepreneur, King has an answer to all her challengers. Electric mowers are 90 percent cleaner that gas mowers, but the batteries they use are hazardous waste, she said. Additionally, electric mowers are three or four times heavier than reel mowers, and still present a safety threat with a spinning blade that can turn rocks and debris into missiles. More than 55,000 people per year are treated for injuries cause by gas or electric mowers, according to the Consumer Products Safety Commission. King said she's made two sales so far, but expects business to pick up once the word of the website has spread. "My goal is to have the best selection of non-motorized mowers anywhere," she said.
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