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I'm learning how to use a string trimmer before buying one. I know that it uses a line to cut the grass. But the line will wear and get shorter. Where does the line go? I guess into the grass and ground. Then it will be plastic waste into the ground, right? We know that plastic can't be decomposed.

Is there a trimmer that does not use a plastic line?

Peter Mortensen
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Tony B
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    Some trimmers can use different type of cutting head, like using blades instead of string, but cutting width is usually much smaller and do not like hard objects too much. First trimmer I had was electric and had a 3 or 4 inch steel blade on it, like a lawn mower. You wear string down mainly by hitting rocks/ground/buildings with it. – crip659 Aug 11 '21 at 17:59
  • Isn't this why they are always a bright obvious color? – pipe Aug 12 '21 at 09:38
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    Kudos to all the people who say they find & collect the bits of broken trimmer line! I don't know that I've _ever_ seen any of the pieces scattered about my yard, whether neon orange, yellow, purple or any other color. TBH, I've never really _looked_, but they're certainly not obvious! – FreeMan Aug 12 '21 at 11:32
  • Assuming you stay away from sharp corners like brick, chain-link fence, or a 4x4 deck post then the trimmer line should last quite a bit of time chewing through grass. You should be able to adjust the guard to maximize your string's lifespan. Realistically, your best bet is to learn how to use a string trimmer well so that you minimize the amount of waste. Stuff like this exists https://www.amazon.com/Oregon-559053-Biodegradable-Trimmer-OREGON/dp/B00C2Y2N7U/ but with zero availability and zero reviews it does make me wonder whether the product is effective. – MonkeyZeus Aug 12 '21 at 13:23
  • @MonkeyZeus I used the Oregon line. It seemed to be a rather mild line. Perfectly fine for ordinary grass, but not tough enough for harder weeds. The star-pattern nylon lines are more agressive, therefor better suited for tougher weeds. – Martin Aug 12 '21 at 13:35
  • @Martin Thanks, I ended up finding a UK website selling the line and the reviews basically echo'd your sentiment. Unless you're going through hundreds of feet of line per year, the waste of a quality line is quite negligible especially if you waste time scouring your yard for tiny fragments. I'm sure there are much better Earth-saving ROIs you could be spending your time on. – MonkeyZeus Aug 12 '21 at 13:45
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    "Plastic can't be decomposed" is a fundamentally wrong statement. Many plastics photodegrade. Some biodegrade. Granted, most of what your hardware store sells would contribute to microplastic contamination, but it's not an absolute. – isherwood Aug 12 '21 at 14:49
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    Picking up bits of trimmer line is a fool's errand. _Millions_ of particles of the stuff are flung everywhere as you trim, and that microplastic pollution could be considered a worse problem than the larger chunks. Either use non-degradable plastic or don't, but don't get to thinking that you'll scavenge and recycle your way to redemption. – isherwood Aug 12 '21 at 14:52
  • Seems like a win for steel cable trimmer line. Wears slowly enough it doesn't really need *trimming*, so no more bumping. Steel that gets into the soil turns into iron oxide, which is already in the soil. Super cheap, just cut a length of it and install it in a slot in the rotating head held down by a setscrew. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Aug 12 '21 at 21:09
  • The amount of microplastics a string trimmer produces is inconsequential compared to many other things. You're better off spending your time trying to get construction/demolition sites to police their sites and waste better, or to get manufacturers to produce less waste/pollution, as those are far more wasteful. Or try to get commercial fishing to stop destroying the oceans, as the largest amount of plastic waste in the oceans are discarded commercial fishing nets. One of those nets is far more damaging than the microplastic from even several years worth of string trimming. – computercarguy Aug 12 '21 at 22:25
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    "Assuming you stay away from sharp corners like brick, chain-link fence, or a 4x4 deck post" - well, there goes the main use cases for a string trimmer. The only place I use mine is in odd shaped spaces that the lawnmower can't reach. That's just a few inches around those objects. – JRE Aug 13 '21 at 07:41
  • @Harper-ReinstateMonica Steel line is dangerous. Other than that, of course, it works better. – fraxinus Aug 13 '21 at 13:52
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    The title of this question should change - you answered your own question here and then asked the **actual** question as a footnote (ie: is there a trimmer that doesn't use plastic?). The top answer here doesn't even address the question of where the plastic goes because you already did that yourself - obviously it ends up on your lawn. – J... Aug 13 '21 at 14:23

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While you can get trimmers that use blades, they are obviously no longer string trimers at that point, even if they came from the factory with a string head. Notably, they have considerably more risk when encountering a solid object, or you - depending on blade design, blades can break and fly off, or fail to yield when encountering an obstruction and cause the machine to kick wildly.

Depending what and how much you are trimming, all the pre-string-trimmer options apply - grass shears, hedge shears, powered hedge trimmers, scythes, sickles, etc. and they may be safer than some string-trimmer metal blade options. String trimmer plastic blades still shed plastic waste as they wear, and become plastic waste when they lose too much of (at least) one blade.

There do appear to be (supposedly) biodegradable trimmer line products showing up on the market - that should have been a priority from the outset, but obviously was not.

Ecnerwal
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You're right, there are little bits of plastic that break off and end up on the ground. There are different types of heads for trimmers that can minimize this. Basically they use different types of blades, usually on a pivot to cut instead of plastic string.

You might check with your dealer for alternatives to the string head.

jwh20
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Maybe you could get some blades like this:

When they hit something to hard they yield instead of breaking. Search for Weed Wacker or Weed Warrior.

Cudos to you for trying to prevent more plastic waste!

Weed Wacker

boatcoder
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Yes, the plastic line goes somewhere around.

Then again, two factors mitigate the plastic waste problem:

  1. The line is usually quite distinct in color (in regard to grass or soil) and allows for easy collection of these parts that happen to tear off.

  2. The line material - what I have seen is PLA. PLA (poly lactic acid) degrades into lactic acid. I am not sure about the speed of the process, but is pretty much faster than any degrade process that could happen in other popular polymers (polyethylene, polystyrene) and the degradation product is much safer.

Well, I still try to collect the orange pieces. They are aestetically unpleasant.

fraxinus
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    PLA is "commercially compostable" (high temperature) and having performed a few experiments with it in a garden setting, a PLA "compostable" fork showed essentially no degradation after more than a year of simply being stuck in a garden bed. I have doubts about how well it would work as trimmer line, unless a "less brittle" formulation than that used for 3D printer filament exists. Filament is quite brittle and breaks very easily. – Ecnerwal Aug 12 '21 at 12:01
  • at least a significant part of the line breaks up as tiny particles that you won't see. PLA degrades under very specific conditions, not when just sitting there. – njzk2 Aug 12 '21 at 19:49
  • @Ecnerwal PLA printer filament is not 100% PLA, and would not be what is used to make trimmer string. There are fillers that contribute to PLA filament's brittle and fickle nature. – Logarr Aug 12 '21 at 20:22
  • The actual wear _rate_ is pretty low too, at least in my experience. I have a typical suburban yard, and a spool of the line typically outlasts the lifetime of the trimmer itself. Which (until electric finally caught up) was typically powered by gas, and far more pollutive every time I ran it than the plastic waste from an entire year of use. And then once the trimmer dies you have to responsibly dispose of it. – GalacticCowboy Aug 13 '21 at 12:45
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    I almost never find pieces of my trimmer line. – bob Aug 13 '21 at 12:51
  • You shouldn't be losing that much line unless you're hitting hard stuff like rocks, metal, or concrete a lot. Grass alone shouldn't be strong enough to cause significant damage to the line. – Darrel Hoffman Aug 13 '21 at 14:00
  • I've never seen trimmer line that's PLA, and I've even *tried using PLA* (from 3D printing stock) with very poor results. PLA is very rigid and thus very brittle, so it just breaks as soon as it hits anything. It's possible to add plasticizers to make it non-brittle, but these are not environmentally friendly. All commercial trimmer line I've ever used has been nylon. (As an aside, nylon trimmer line, properly dried before use, makes suitable material for 3D printing nylon!) – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Aug 13 '21 at 18:45
  • @Ecnerwal Sticking something in the ground is not "composting" at all. Even a domestic compost heap should heat up to 40C (100F) or more. But cooking a fork at 40C for 6 months to see what happens to it isn't a very practical experiment. – alephzero Aug 13 '21 at 21:09
  • @Logarr: Quite the opposite. Pure PLA filament is the most rigid/brittle. The additives in most printing filament are there to make it less so, as well as for aesthetic reasons. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Aug 13 '21 at 21:38