Propane Helps These Three Municipalities Go Green!

July is National Parks and Recreation Month, and as part of celebrating our Nation’s green spaces the Propane Education and Research Council (PERC) recognized three municipalities that take the green movement seriously.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 15 percent compared to gasoline.

Columbus proactively sought ways to reduce harmful emissions by instating a citywide green initiative in 2008. Ultimately, the city hopes to become one of the greenest cities in America.

As part of the Green Fleet Action Plan, Craig Seeds, the city’s parks and forestry administrator, says he adopted propane-powered mowers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 15 percent and carbon emissions by more than 40 percent compared with gasoline.

When the University of Louisville’s president signed the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2008, the goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions became a campus-wide priority. According to Aaron Boggs, assistant director of maintenance and renovations, propane provided a perfect way to green their operations while also greening their bottom line.

“With budget cuts year after year, we needed a solution that would allow us to save money while also meeting the emissions reductions requirements,” said Boggs.

Saving time by refueling on-location means moving onto other landscaping duties sooner.

The Miami-Dade County Parks, Recreation, and Open Spaces Department needed a way to more efficiently meet the demands of southeast Florida’s year-round cutting season. From the outset, productivity increased in the field once the department began transitioning its gasoline mower fleet to propane.

“We’re spending a lot of time now maintaining flowers and landscaping instead of cutting so much grass,” says Gil Delgado, sports turf and landscape division chief for the department. “Part of that is because we don’t spend as much time refueling these units.”

One propane cylinder can power a day and a half of mowing, and refueling is as simple as swapping out an empty cylinder for a full cylinder. The operators can carry an extra propane cylinder to a site rather than leaving to fill up gasoline tanks at a filling station during the day.