I cut my grass today, as I do most every weekend this time of year — although I think it’s been worse this year with the record rainfall that St. Louis has received — and as I take the tractor another round, it gives me time to ponder things. Things like why do people waste their grass?

Let me explain. There is this cycle of waste that is promoted in suburbia. You pay a lot of money for a good lawn mower, then you pay for those nifty little yard waste bags, and extra to your trash service to haul away your yard waste, and that doesn’t count the extra time you spend bagging your grass clippings and leaves. Then, you have to buy fertilizer to keep your yard well fed and you have to pay to water it to keep it looking green.

This doesn’t even take into account the long term degradation of your soil because you take pounds and pounds of biomass out of your yard every year and wave goodbye as someone you paid to haul it away either turns it into mulch and resells it, or dumps it in a landfill somewhere.

Well, there is a very simple solution that will break this cycle of waste: buy a mulching mower. If you can’t afford one, buy a mulching blade for your existing mower, and stop bagging your clippings. That’s right, just let them fly. I know your yard won’t have that golf course manicured look when you’re done cutting, but who cares? Especially when you stop to consider that those clippings will fall in between the blades of grass, and provide a natural mulch that not only traps moisture (so you don’t have to water your yard), but as it decays, it fertilizes the ground as well.

So say goodbye to the cost of yard waste bags and hauling, say goodbye to fertilizer, and say hello to extra money and extra time as well as a greener yard, both literally and ecologically.