Robotic Lawn Mower: A New Source for Domestic Magnetic Field Exposure

A robotic lawn mower can be found today in many village gardens, and the sales of these robots are many times higher than that of traditional mowers. However, the robot requires a set of electric boundary wires defining the lawn area to be mowed, and also providing a pulsed magnetic field to be sensed by the robot electronics. This is a new source for domestic environmental magnetic field exposure. We discuss it in this article.

People moving around on the lawn are more or less constantly exposed to a pulsed magnetic field. We have measured the magnetic field from the boundary wires of two different common brands of lawn mowers. In both cases, we found pulsed magnetic field “packages” in the ELF range that pulse frequencies around some tens of kHz. This “household” source of environmental exposure to the magnetic field has not been discussed from a health perspective point of view.

Example of the pulsed field from one lawn mower (B) is given here.

The maximum magnetic field strength recorded for lawn mower A with the probe on the ground close to the cable, positioned to get a maximum reading, was Hrms = 0.17 A/m.

For lawn mower B, the rms values were lower, and a maximum reading with the probe on the ground next to the boundary wire gave Hrms = 20 mA/m. Here, the general level was around Hrms = 10 mA/m. The maximum peak value in the pulses on the ground was around 0.5 A/m.

The peak value exposure is not so far off the values (equals 0.2–0.4 μT, i.e. about 0.2–0.3 A/m) that led IARC in 2001 to classify low‐frequency magnetic field as a class IIB, i.e. “possibly carcinogenic” to humans.

It would be pertinent to point out that many organisms, such as earthworms, snails, and other animals, are sensitive to EMFs in different frequency regions (both DC and AC). We are not aware of any studies relating lawn mower electronic signals to the reactions of these animals, e.g. snail passages above a sling. This is also the case for plant growth and movements, which are sensitive to low‐intensity magnetic fields .

Some advice is to make sure when buying a new machine that the system turns off the pulsed current when the machine is loading the battery. Do turn off the system when children are playing on the lawn, and especially when there is a baby sleeping in a baby carriage placed on the lawn. Do not run the machine at night since with the boundary wire just outside the house, you may have exposure in your bed of up to some tens of mA/m.

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Increasing incidence of thyroid cancer in the Nordic countries

During use of the handheld wireless phone, especially the smartphone, the thyroid gland is a target organ. During the 21st century, the incidence of thyroid cancer is increasing in many countries. We used the Swedish Cancer Register to study trends from 1970 to 2017.

During that time period, the incidence increased statistically significantly in women The increase was especially pronounced during 2010–2017. Increasing incidence was found also in men. Similar results were found for all Nordic countries based on NORDCAN.

These results are in agreement with recent results on increased thyroid cancer risk associated with the use of mobile phones. We postulate that RF radiation is a causative factor for the increasing thyroid cancer incidence.

This article is a follow-up to our previous publication on the same issue.

The results show that it is important to protect the thyroid gland from exposure to radiofrequency radiation from wireless phones, e.g. the smartphone. It should be used only for short calls always in the speaker mode or using handsfree.