There are three clear benefits to switching to organic lawn care: Your lawn will be healthier, your family and pets will be healthier, and the environment will be healthier.
Learn More »There are three clear benefits to switching to organic lawn care: Your lawn will be healthier, your family and pets will be healthier, and the environment will be healthier.
Learn More »Draft Sustainable Princeton Plan Public Presentation and Workshop
Wednesday, March 11 at 7:00PM
Susanne Patterson Center –Princeton, NJ
Download the draft Sustainable Princeton Community Plan here!
There are three clear benefits to switching to organic lawn care: Your lawn will be healthier, your family and pets will be healthier, and the environment will be healthier.
Synthetically treated lawns are often very weak. What some call "lazy grass" is a result of large amounts of fertilizer applied to lawns. Synthetic fertilizer does not store in the soil for long and synthetic fertilizer applications provide a big dose of nutrients at the top of the soil. This leads to grass with short roots that are clustered at the surface. Healthy grass plants have strong and deep roots that absorb water and nutrients from deep in the soil and deposit essential organic matter throughout the soil. Short roots lead to week grass, which makes the lawn become susceptible to the first sign of stress from drought, weeds, disease or insects. Synthetic lawn chemicals are also toxic to the beneficial microorganisms that build fertile soil. As we all know, fertile soil grows healthy plants.
Much research has been done into the risks of pesticide exposure in the home. When pesticides are used around the house (or your neighbors house), there is a good chance that your family and pets will be exposed. Risks from pesticide exposure have been shown repeatedly. The National Cancer Institute considers pesticide exposure to be the #1 environmental cause of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Pesticides have been linked to a myriad of serious cancers, immune diseases, hormone disorders and other health problems in humans and animals. Please consult our Pesticide Risks page for more information.
The Environmental Protection Agency considers nonpoint source pollution to be the greatest threat to water quality in the U.S. Run off from residential use of synthetic fertilizer and pesticide is a leading contributor to nonpoint source pollution. The EPA estimates that 80 million U.S. households dump 90 million pounds of herbicides and pesticides on lawns every year. Our rivers, streams and aquatic ecosystems are damaged by the runoff and leaching from all those lawns. In Princeton, the Stony Brook Millstone Watershed Institute sites residential lawn fertilizer and pesticide as a contributor to nonpoint source pollution of our local watershed and has launched Project Turtle to educate the public about this issue.
Also, pesticide application to lawns directly affects birds and other local wildlife. American Robin, European starling, American Widgeon and Canada geese are all highly exposed when pesticides and chemical fertilizers are applied. Birds feed on turf insects that are targeted by some pesticides and build up huge systemic concentrations of pesticide.