Moss and Weeds Get the Green Treatment

Two relatively unrelated stories that have crossed my desk this week showcase how we're getting greener from the ground up, but in totally different ways.

The first story comes by way of Todd Woody, writing in the New York Times' Green Inc. blog about a company that's putting moss to work on creating cleaner, clearer and greener swimming pools and spas.

Creative Water Solutions' PoolNaturally cleaning products use sphagnum moss to fight the buildup of biofilms and algaes and reduce the amount of chlorine and other chemicals needed to clean pools.

Woody writes:

According to Dr. David Knighton, a founder of Creative Water Solutions and its chief executive, moss treatment inhibits the formation of bacterial colonies called biofilms. Chlorine kills free-floating bacteria but biofilms absorb the chemical, requiring ever-greater doses to keep a pool clean.[...]

With the moss keeping a pool’s biofilms under control, much less chlorine is needed -– just enough to kill free-floating bacteria. The moss also eliminates the need for cyanuric acid, which is traditionally added to outdoor pools to stabilize the chlorine.[...]

“We just rediscovered what’s been used for centuries,” [Knighton] said. “Northern Minnesota is known for its clean clear lakes, and that’s one of the reasons.” Dr. Knighton realized he was on to something, he added, when he dropped some moss into his home spa and within a few days the water was crystal clear.

Pasted below for your edification is a link to a short movie about how the moss helps to reduce biofilms and clean water in less chemically intensive ways.

Click to Play

And on a nearly completely different note, over at the MIT Technology Review's energy blog, Kevin Bullis calls our attention to a company that's raking in the awards for its greener, cleaner weed whackers and leaf blowers.

Lehr's products run on propane-powered engines, which, Bullis writes, "produces 97 percent less particulates and 96 percent less carcinogens than gasoline engines. It also surpasses emissions standards for carbon monoxide by 75 percent and for hydrocarbons by 65 percent, emits less of smog-forming nitrogen oxide, and is 35 percent more efficient, reducing carbon dioxide emissions. And it's quieter -- it can be used comfortably without earplugs."

Earlier this year, Lehr won an EPA Clean Air Excellence Award for its products, and last month representatives of a number of organizations -- including the U.S. Congress, the City of Los Angeles, the American Lung Association, the Coalition for Clean Air, the Environmental Protection Agency and (perhaps unsurprisingly) the Propane Education and Research Council -- applauded the company for its impacts on air quality around the country.

Even though the summer is winding down and the nation's pool cleaners will go back into deep storage for the winter, with fall lurking just around the bend, the market for greener, cleaner and quieter leafblowers is certainly looking up.

_{Images CC-licensed by Flickr users doublej11 and yeowatzup.}