Pollution: A state of mind and matter

Pollution is complex and its effects far-reaching on our physical and mental wellbeing. It impacts every corner of the planet – oceans, rivers, the atmosphere and biological systems, including humans.

The ‘polluter pays’ policy has seldom proved an easy answer to mopping up industry’s dirty footprints or watermarks. Low emission and clean air zones continue to cause controversy as they can severely impact vehicle-reliant businesses. 

Climate change and the relentless movement from ‘green to grey’ continues across the country’s 22 million gardens to satisfy the need to find space to park our cars and vans safely.

The need to connect the many aspects of environmental management to form a coherent assault on pollution is gaining ground. Actioning it though is going to take a while, given so many competing interests.

For the time being perhaps, tackling this global issue is best handled by targeting specific elements of the whole. Transitioning from fossil fuels to electric is one

By year-end, battery, power tool and machinery maker EGO Power+ will have issued its final report under the Campaign 2025 initiative it launched five years ago to push the transition from fossil fuel to battery driven technology.

Data amassed from across Europe will show clearly that numbers of battery tools and machinery now in use have risen significantly in recent times, along with a big fall in using petrol powered kit.

The EGO Power+ report shows petrol-powered leaf blowers were found to emit 11 times more carbon monoxide than a small hatchback car.

The report will include research from trade body the European Garden Machinery Federation, whose turf maintenance machinery members include major players such as Kubota, Makita, Positec, John Deere, EGO Power+, Stiga, Stihl, Toro, Pellenc, Bosch, Briggs and Stratton and Husqvarna Group.

Under wraps at the time of going print, the report’s executive summary has been made available to Pitchcare.

In it, group product director Vince Brauns pointed to its Challenge 2025 campaign to make battery technology the major power source for cordless outdoor power equipment by the end of 2025.

“Our goal was to empower both domestic and professional users across Europe to retire petrol-powered tools in favour of cleaner, quieter and safer battery-powered alternatives,” he states.

Independent testing by Earlsmere (vibration and noise) and UTAC (emissions) sought to compare the manufacturer’s battery tools with petrol-powered equivalents across noise, emissions and vibration.

“The results were shocking. Petrol-powered leaf blowers were found to emit 11 times more carbon monoxide than a small hatchback car, and their noise and vibration levels far exceeded health and safety limits in many cases. It was clear to us that change was not just necessary, it was urgent,” he concludes.

Measuring the noise level of a leaf blower.

He notes that six in ten UK local authorities (of those responding to requests for the data) were still using petrol tools within clean air zones, despite financial penalties being issued for use of pollution-emitting vehicles within the same spaces.

“Now our vision is being realised, he concludes. “According to EGMF data, battery-powered tools now make up 58% of the European market, while petrol tool sales have declined to just 26%. The shift towards the adoption of battery power is underway and we remain committed to advocating a future where petrol-powered OPE becomes a thing of the past.”

Industry events highlight innovations including electric utility vehicles are being taken up, but is the same true for commercial traffic? The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) reports that its members are committing to electric and has data to back up its claim. Although vehicle sales saw a drop overall in September year on year, the month saw battery vehicle sales reach a new high.

Industry advances make sound sense

During Covid lockdown, a deafening silence fell over the country. Familiar noises faded away, and so many of the population warmed to the sound of bird song in the urban space, also feeling the wellbeing benefits of more peaceful environments as traditional trades were unable to carry on as usual.

With lockdown lifted however, these layers of life returned - a complex, intense cacophony we’d grown accustomed to as a consequence of everyday living.

Sounds can have a cumulative effect, raising decibel levels slowly but surely, almost unconsciously to many of us. Where we can, we take action to avoid what can result in long-term damage to our hearing and mental state.

Propagation of noise or sound with potential harm to humans and animals is commonly termed noise pollution. Outdoors noise results largely from machinery, transport and propagation, aggravated perhaps by poor urban planning.

Turfcare machinery is billed as one of the main sources of noise in residential areas, and that would include a fair number of sports sites. Another reason why more golf courses are resorting to battery mowers if greens lie close to housing. Being quieter than traditional diesel or petrol machines, electric kit allows teams to start work in noise sensitive areas earlier than fossil fuel powered counterparts.

Our senses and body reactions soon tell us if air pollution is high, unlike noise, which can act insidiously over time. High noise levels can affect our cardiovascular health and cause a rise in coronary heart disease, studies show.

Combating noise pollution is more than wearing ear defenders (and these may not fully protect you). Researchers measure noise in terms of pressure, intensity and frequency. Sound pressure is the quantity of pressure relative to atmospheric pressure during sound wave propagation that can vary over time.

Sound intensity is the flow of sound over a particular area, while sound frequency or pitch reflects the number of sound waves propagated through the air per second. Our sensitivity to higher frequencies fades with age.

Defending our hearing

Ear defenders have become essential standard issue for those working in fluctuating or continuously noisy environments. Traditional turfcare machinery, vehicles and power tools carry sound signatures, mostly because of their power systems. The transition from petrol and diesel to battery power across the board is having a major impact on the prevailing levels grounds professionals have to cope with. But it’s still work in progress.

For some though, the electric era has come too late. Noise pollution has already damaged health. A longstanding grounds professional I spoke to, who preferred to withhold his name, had worn ear defenders for all of his years maintaining golf courses, yet had still suffered high frequency loss of hearing, he told me, due to noise emissions from turfcare machinery, blade sharpening equipment and power tools.

“Ideally, grounds teams should share the work around to break up exposure limits and the length of time they may be using one type of machinery or tool,” he said. “But demands of the work, especially for small teams, mean that’s not always possible. Moving to electric power will certainly help.”

But a deeper issue dogs the sector, he believes. Despite all the PPE gear available, “a lack of awareness about protecting yourself against noise still exists,” he said.

Safety first

Awarding and certification body Lantra recently launched a safety and skills campaign to raise awareness about the importance of proper PPE and knowledge about the potential dangers of using chainsaws incorrectly. Ear defenders form part of that conversation – as the stealthy advance of hearing damage can leave a lasting legacy of ill health.

The health impact of noise pollution can be profound, and it can influence behaviour. Unwanted sound can damage physiological and mental health and has been linked to hypertension, high stress, tinnitus, hearing loss and sleep disturbance, besides the cardio impact mentioned earlier. A 2019 literature review also suggested it causes cognitive function to decline faster.

Occupational hearing loss is billed among the world’s most common work-related illnesses. The World Health Organisation states noise levels above 55 decibels become harmful to human health, however the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) says dose and projected dose are based on sound level and duration of noise exposure related to its recommended exposure limit of 85dB(A) for an eight-hour shift.

Helping us to tag sound levels at work are the audio engineers who developed smart phone apps. Although relatively few met the functional criteria required, NIOSH developed a sound level meter app to measure several sound parameters.

Pollution attracts a public airing

The twin environmental stressors of heat and encroachment on green space as rural and urban areas disappear under concrete and housing present less typical cases of pollution, but are frighteningly real nonetheless.

Pitchcare has reported previously on Husqvarna’s hugsi.green global monitoring platform, which runs live data of urban green canopies in European and Far East countries, among others.

In so doing, the manufacturer is delivering vital, current updates for environmental agencies, planners and green space managers – including those running sport, leisure and amenity sites – to make educated decisions on how best to mitigate the effects of urban heat islands and noise pollution and helping them create wildlife corridors.

Health and wellbeing is rising rapidly up the public and political agenda, steered by ambassadors such as Fergal Sharkey (pushing for change in the water sector) and in government by Caroline Bowden MP, who is calling for the creation of an Office for Green Space to manage co-ordinated action on the importance of the green (and blue) realm in fostering a healthier population and reducing the many forms of damaging pollution.

A yearly poll of 100 MPs on behalf of the Horticulture Trades Association (HTA) finds rising acceptance of the value of gardening and horticulture in health and wellbeing – a groundswell of opinion that the Association hopes will translate into policymaking.

Following its ‘The Value of Plants’ report, issued in 2023, the HTA delivered an extensively researched and sourced sister body of work – The Value of Gardens - this autumn.

Annual death toll

Among a host of statistics was the World Health Organisation estimate that 91% of people in urban areas breathe polluted air, while in the UK, between 28,000 and 36,000 deaths a year are thought to be attributed to human-made air pollution.

In a section devoted to the issue were financial estimates of the impact of pollution. “The UK’s urban trees and grasslands provided an estimated £893m in air pollution removal services in 2022 (£1.02bn in 2025 prices),” the report noted, “while removal of harmful pollutants by urban vegetation was worth an estimated £800.5m in avoided negative health impacts in Great Britain in 2021 alone, equivalent to £993.4m today.”

The same benefits can be realised for trees and plants in domestic gardens, it added, as pollutants such as carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides are absorbed during the process of photosynthesis.

“Trees are one of the best natural filters available,” the report stated, “but shrubs (especially those with dense, waxy or hairy foliage) can also intercept some of the smallest particulate matter from the atmosphere.”

Pollution removal of damaging airborne particulate matter has been found to be most effective at ground level when closest to the source of emissions – traffic for example. “Low-level hedging around gardens can offer effective protection for households against localised pollution,” it added. Public car parks across sport, leisure and amenity may also benefit.

Royal Horticultural Society data also reveal that, in a week, a one-metre dense hedge can absorb the same amount of pollution that a car emits over a 500-mile journey.

These dramatic stats may have the potential for even more beneficial impact on the environment. Noticeable recently is the rise of tightly cut hedging, creating almost a wall of vegetation, fashioned by the multitude of power tools now available.

They prove effective sound barriers for sure, and closer cropping develops more leaf surface area to absorb still further, polluting gases and particulates. Stepping away from the more traditional contouring of vertical face and flat or pitched top to create a more ‘wavy’ or undulating profile would fashion an even greater surface area for oxygen release, carbon dioxide absorption and particulate take-up.

The RHS summarises the environmental gains hedges deliver:

• Physical trapping: The physical structure of dense, hairy leaves and complex canopies physically captures particulate pollutants and other airborne particles.
• Evapotranspiration: Hedges with high rates of evapotranspiration can also help cool the air at a leaf level.
• Rainfall capture: The dense canopy of a well-managed hedge can also aid in the retention and capture of rainfall.

Practical applications

• Urban planning: Planting dense, multi-layered hedges along busy roads and in pollution hotspots can significantly improve local air quality.
• Gardening and landscaping: Gardeners can choose species with the right characteristics, like Cotoneaster franchetii, to help mitigate air pollution in their own spaces.

Hedges provide long-term environmental gains, the RHS adds, “outlasting nearby fences and acting as a cost-effective, sustainable alternative.”

Education plays a key role in advancing the skills and awareness to understand our plight over pollution and to foster ways to actively counteract or avoid it. The RHS’ National Education Nature Park for example promotes use of ‘super plants’ and schools young people about their environmental benefits.

A new course in Level 3 landscaping, launched in October by The Landscape Institute in partnership with The London Design & Engineering UTC, also offers the prospect of developing the skillsets needed to apply to the global, as well as local, issue of climate resilience, of which pollution control is an integral part.