by Ava Siegel
Picture this: it is a placid morning on the College of Wooster campus. You got up and got ready for class with enough time to make it to your 9 a.m. via a nice stroll (rather than a light jog). The trees are vibrant reds, yellows and oranges, and the air is crisp. Maybe you’re walking with a friend, or perhaps you’re listening to music. Maybe you’re just enjoying the relative silence.
But, as any College of Wooster student can tell you, this idyllic fall morning is not long for this world. You hear it as you get closer to the Oak Grove, perhaps; the revving, rumbling and screaming of leaf-blowers, lawnmowers, even a leaf-vacuuming truck. That’s right; anywhere you go on the College of Wooster at any time of day before the evening, you’ll likely run into landscaping going on. Every. Single. Day.
Now, I can’t speak for all of my peers, but personally, I’d like one peaceful morning to go uninterrupted by landscaping. I’d like to enjoy the beauty of this campus, which will not be hindered by the grass growing a few centimeters taller, or by leaves covering the ground, as it is natural. This noise pollution is rampant, and it has been every single year I’ve been here.
I have a strong memory from early freshman year in which my English professor decided to hold class outside. It was a beautiful day, and it would’ve been a lovely class. Unfortunately, a lawnmower rolled up and decided that cutting the grass was more important than whatever gathering was going on. I can assure you it was not.
But let us get past me being crotchety and wanting some quiet: because there’s an even bigger issue going on just beneath the surface: landscaping is terrible for the environment.
The equipment being used spews out greenhouse gases and other pollutants. According to the EPA, five percent of yearly emissions are from lawn equipment alone. On top of that, 800 million gallons of gasoline are used to fuel equipment yearly, not even mentioning the 17 million gallons that don’t even get combusted and instead get spilled directly into the environment.
And that’s just in general. Let’s take the raucous, harsh gales of the lowly leaf blower as an example: the powerful airflow that is let loose by these machines damages plants and the soil itself. Even minimal leaf blower usage destroys a vital habitat in the ecosystem, the fallen leaves and continued usage will dry out, compact and even erode soil.
Even worse is the vacuum truck that occasionally makes the rounds on campus. As if disrupting the ecosystem of the fallen leaves with a leaf blower wasn’t bad enough, the school is going as far as to remove them entirely, destroying any chance of recovery. It’s disgraceful.
And we wonder why there are bald spots all over campus…
