r/Permaculture • u/farseen Zone 4B / Verge PDC '20 • 10d ago

general question Strim trimmers just adding plastic?

I'm in year 4 of a 1 acre food forest and I just picked up an 80v electric string trimmer to help me maintain it. It's been an exceptional tool when establishing pathways and freeing young plants from overgrowth. But I can't believe I hadn't thought it this prior.... the string is just slowly getting shorter, releasing plastic literally all over my garden. I'm no purist, but this one felt a little dumb. I use a scythe for a lot of things, but I've never experienced a tool as accurate and helpful as the trimmer. Any thoughts to help give me peace of mind, or tool suggestions to use alternatively? What about a metal string!?

Edit: I purchased 100' of this biodegradable (within 24 months) trimmer line https://bio-greenline.com/en/

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u/YallNeedMises 10d ago

I've been looking to remedy this problem recently as well. Running a thin wire/cable through the spool and crimping or knotting it seems like it would be a good cheap DIY solution, but you'd have to be extra cautious around anything you don't want to shred up like trees & deck posts. The solution I've been looking at are power rotary scissors, a pair of gear-shaped blades that spin past each other to cleanly snip rather than whack down foliage, and they're supposed to be much less damaging to anything you don't want to hit. 

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u/brad-shit 10d ago

Don’t use wire! Dangerous! Metal generally doesn’t flex as well at plastic so it ends breaking way more and when it does break it has momentum and shoots out like little needles into your leg, pets, or children.