Phytoremediation
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Bagging the grass is a very effective phytoremediation method.
The radionuclide storm has mostly subsided for now. The air is cleaner. Rain is no longer a torrent of radioactive waste.
The entire Northern Hemisphere has taken a serious hit. The radionuclides were scattered across earth, plants and sea. Now they are washing downward or sinking into the soil, lakebeds and the ocean floor. Now the rain is our friend again. Rain washes the radionuclides away from our homes, cars and streets.
Grasses and weeds are fairly effective at uptaking radionuclides from the soil. So mowing the grass is very effective phytoremediation. Every cutting is removing the Fukushima poison from homes, parks and schools. The summer of 2011 is an excellent year to ‘bag’ the grass and a really lousy year for mulching.
We don’t have HEPA filters on lawnmowers so a small and decreasing percentage of the radionuclides are scattered to the winds. This was a bigger deal during the recent radionuclide storm. Then most of the radioactive fallout was on the grass. Now the radionuclides are inside the grass. Like it or not, the suburban manicured yard is the best phytoremediation project going.
Bill Duff
I agree to a limited extent
I agree to a limited extent to your post, in that this is the first year in ten that I have bagged, rather than mulched the lawn clippings. That said:
1) I hire the lawn mowed, by an elderly (65 yr old man).
2) I spray down the most accessible parts of the yard afterwards. I would never use compressed air, seems to me that would perpetuate the problem.
3) I would say that much of the decline in BRAWM's grass measurements relate to the fact that the fallout had settled onto the grass, which is now mowed and hauled off. Now it is in the dirt, which like you said, is better than the air.
4) Our food is grown outdoors. I doubt any farmer, to a man, has paid much attention to FK.
5) When the street sweeper truck goes by, I have significant pucker. I think about how he may kill himself, and others.
6) Windstorms, windows shut.
7) Dust control inside, critical.
Coulda, Woulda & Shoulda
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For about a dollar a day, for about 60 days, yard-men and leaf-blowers could have been protected from the recent 2011 North American Radionuclide Storm (NARS-2011).
For half that money, school kids could have been sent home wearing a painter's mask.
For a few bucks per day, school air filtration could have been 'beefed up'. Children and pubescent girls could have been protected.
Alas, no where in North America were such measures even considered. The children are the sicker and weaker for it. Their cancers and health problems will significantly increase, statistically.
The CRISIS was grossly mishandled at every level of government.
YOYO
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The North American radionuclide storm is over, for now. So we can begin to stand down.
It is OK to use an air compressor, with filter, to 'blow off' produce from your own garden, prior to harvesting, washing.
As a matter of fact, grains, such as wheat are routinely 'blown clean', in the harvesting, storage and processing steps. It would be nice if the air was filteed at the graineries. But, to the best of my recollection it is not.
It would also be nice, if international, national, state OR local governments or even the press had our safety in mind ... but they don't. Quite the contrary, in this matter, as in so many others ...
You're On Your Own (YOYO)
good point about bagging the clippings....
I hate bagging the clippings :-(