According to this article in the online magazine Electrek, California regulators are planning to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers by 2022. Huzzah, I say! Actually, I would be happy with a ban on just the leaf blowers. I hate them.
The main reason I hate them is that they are so damn loud. Noise pollution is a serious thing – it’s been linked to stress, hypertension, and hearing loss. Not to mention damage to the quality of life.
I mean, the cops would show up and arrest me if I set up giant speakers in my front yard and blasted 90 decibels of, say, polka music into the neighborhood. Why should it be acceptable to generate that kind of noise with leaf blowers – hour after hour, as landscapers move from yard to yard?
Gas-powered leaf blowers also release a great deal of air pollution. A single hour of leaf blower use spews as much air pollution as driving a Toyota Camry for 1,100 miles. And gas-powered leaf blowers emit unsafe amounts of the carcinogen benzene.
About 100 cities around the country have already banned gas-powered leaf blowers. Most are in California, others are scattered around the country. The District of Columbia has passed a ban that also goes into effect in 2022.
Most landscapers don’t like this idea. It will force them to lay out money for electric blowers and the batteries they require. But I have very limited sympathy. Landscapers want to make their costs lower by externalizing them onto the general population, making us endure higher noise and air pollution. How is that fair?
Also, the kind of backpack blowers used by landscapers today have only been around for about 30 years. Before that, landscapers operated without gas-powered blowers. They can do so again.
And finally, gas-powered blowers create an intensively groomed look that has become, but wasn’t always, the standard expectation. But this is not an eternal standard of beauty. Not every scrap of organic matter needs to blown off the lawn.
I’m very confident that most people in my community would be far happier (and healthier) without the din and pollution of gas-powered blowers. What about you, though? Would you ban the blowers, or let them alone?
gardeninacity 
Jason, you would probably enjoy this story in the October issue of The Atlantic Monthly on noise pollution
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/the-end-of-silence/598366/
I certainly enjoyed it, Lavinia. I just read the whole darned thing — it was so interesting and well-written, I couldn’t stop. Thanks for the link.
That article was a good, if disturbing, read. Thanks for the link.
Yes, thank you for the link! Very good article.
I’m trying to remember life without leaf blowers. They not only blow the lawns around here, they blow off the streets, the sidewalks, the patios, and the parking lots. Oddly enough, I don’t remember our streets, sidewalks, parking lots and patios being a mess ‘back in the day.’ What did we do? I know we raked leaves, and raked up grass trimmings in the yard, but no one bothered with the sidewalks or streets, and they were fine.
I guess I’m not in favor of leaf blowers being banned, but I surely do wish they’d disappear: gas-powered and electric both. Brooms and rakes still work, and they don’t even need batteries.
I can understand being reluctant to impose an inflexible prohibition, but I’m afraid nothing will change unless something like that happens.
From the heart Jason. No petrol mowers, now there’s a thought. It’s not been sgggested over here yet
Hard to imagine, isn’t it? But a lovely thought.
I’m with you, Jason. I really dislike the noise and the amount of pollution they generate. I hope the ban spreads.
Ditto!
Five years ago I would have 100% agreed with you. As I continue to ‘mature,’ raking for hours days on end is a little too much. I bought a battery operated leaf blower this past year with the hope of using is specifically to get the oak leaves out of the beds which I can then rake up and dispose. Do I hate the noise and pollution of gas leaf blowers? Yes. Do I think sidewalks and roads needs to be blown? No. We have a neighbor who has his yard cleared once in the fall and once in the spring. The landscape crew arrives and the blowers go for hours.
Well, maybe the power of the battery-powered blowers will improve. It’s hard to come up with rules that fit every situation, which is the problem with rules, I suppose.
I can appreciate all the complaints about noise. Years ago I remember reading an article about a person that moved here from the wilds of Africa. I can’t remember all the details but what stuck in my mind was that he had to give up his education because he couldn’t stand the noise here. Even the hum of a refrigerator nearly made him crazy, wore him to a frazzle.
When I moved here with 25 years ago I moved from a country setting to a city setting. Not NY or Chicago city but it was enough city that at first I thought I might not be able to live here due to all the street noise. It took two years for me to settle in and 25 years later I still hate it. My husband is hard of hearing so it doesn’t bother him. I often complain that I can “feel” the noise. I have learned to live with it mostly.
As to those big blowers I hate them. There is only one or two in our neighborhood and they are used only once per week or so. Never late at night. Ban them I say. Our neighbors hired a new lawn service last year. That was the first time I ever saw someone with a backpack blower blowing the lawn. Crazy. Good thing we all have small lawns.
Although they can spend a maddening amount of time blowing even a small lawn. And when they are done with one, they start work on the neighbor’s.
One of the suburbs here in the Detroit area has banned gas-powered leaf blowers because of the noise issue. Now if we could just ban the fireworks!
Really, I hadn’t heard that. But fireworks? I might not be with you on that one. After all, it’s only something you hear a couple times per year (at least in this area).
With great self-restraint, I’ll limit my comment to a thousand rabid words. I was raised a musician: I listen. Rarely does any sound become “white noise” to me. Shopping is torture. Waiting rooms ditto. Leaf blowers? Carpet cleaners? Power tools? Painful. People who inflict their “music” on me? Incomprehensible. I’ve concluded that most people have ears that don’t work. I have to say, though, that, if one has to blare music, it should be a polka. I have seen your blog photos of your street, and I can imagine all those beautiful trees swaying in rhythm and the butterflies grabbing partners and swirling in 1-2-3’s.
Edit: make that 1-2-3-hop!
So funny you should say polka! I generally am okay with polka music, but one year we rented a summer house for a week on a lake in northern Wisconsin. Little did we realize it was pontoon regatta week! On Saturday, they blared the loudest polka music from down the lake, and everyone went out on their boat and drank beer. We fled! We wandered the area like nomads desperately looking for something to do away from the lake.
I couldn’t help picking up on the polka part of his post because I too am from the Chicago area and found that hilarious. What you describe is nasty. I’d run too!
Many years ago I worked for an organization that did an annual polka fundraiser at the White Eagle. The star attraction was always Eddie Blazonczyk and the Versatones. Some of the seniors (those who needed new eyeglasses, maybe) thought I looked like Eddie and would ask me to announce their birthdays or play one of their favorites.
I hate leaf blowers. Unfortunately, I can’t see a ban happening in Chicago. You never know though, they legalized cannabis.
Maybe the cannabis is supposed to help us tolerate the leaf blowers.
I hate leaf blowers too. When our daughter was in college, her apartment was across the street from a university parking garage, and regularly there would be someone using a leaf blower in the garage in the middle of the night. She never figured out if he was blowing garbage or what, but it annoyed the heck out of her. And probably the huge owl that would hang out in the tree outside of her window too.
I would rather have the owl. Why would someone use a leafblower in a parking garage? Weird.
As well as the terrible noise, leaf blowers create small airborne particles that are super irritating to folks with allergies. Hate them!
Definitely no good for people with allergies, which is a lot of people.
My husband and I moved to the country 10 years ago specifically to get away from the noise — especially the roar of leaf blowers! Now our air is filled with bird song!
Sounds wonderful.
I am not a fan of them but we use them periodically as the easiest way for aging gardeners to spruce things up before a garden tour.
The electric ones wouldn’t be adequate?
We have an electric one that we use in vacuum mode (it has a mulching blade inside), but I hardly ever use it because its still too noisy!
I have an electric weed whacker or strimmer and I use it all the time. Does the vacuum mode really work? Do you have trouble with sticks etc. getting stuck inside?
It works great on leaves but fills up fast, so it ends up being a bit of a pain. Don’t have much problem with large sticks, it mulches small twigs really well.
I have an electric leaf “blower” which also vacuums. When the time comes, late spring, I vacuum the leaves from beds and those odd places where they accumulate. The vacuum/blower shreds the dry leaves and blows them into a bag. I have shredded leaves to add to my beds or my compost heap. It does make noise but I only use it a few times a year.
I would like to do that. What brand do you use?
Yes! However, I live in Texas and our idiot gov and legislature is more likely to pass a state ordinance requiring every homeowner/business to purchase the loudest, most inefficient models available. 🙂 Great article Jason–love the take-off of The Scream!
I just read an article about progressive city councils in Texas banding together to thwart the state legislature. https://prospect.org/politics/progressives-help-progressives-across-city-lines/
We do very rarely use one, but our neighbours are far enough away and I had a quiet mini electric one for out the front of our old house. There is something soothing about raking or sweeping leaves by hand, and it means you get to chat with passers-by too! 😉 There is lots of talk about banning them here too and I think some towns have already.
I really wonder if raking is that much more physically demanding than lugging those big backpack blowers around.
Where I work I do buildings and grounds maintenance and I can remove more leaves in less time than 4 people with rakes can. I’ll say this; if you have people doing your yard work for you, you can expect your bill to rise dramatically if they can’t use leaf blowers because the same work will take much longer with rakes.
Please give my neighbors’ landscapers lessons. I raked my yard (same size, same tree/leaves) faster than two of them using leaf blowers. I seriously think they don’t know how to properly use them. I’ve had the idea of setting up a camera to film us both to compare since last year.
A good landscape service will typically do far more than just blow or rake leaves. Rain gutters and window wells need to be blown out. After the initial leaf blow leaves need to be hand picked out of roses, lilacs, forsythia, and other shrubs. They also have to be hand picked out of any fence / hedge rows and then once the hand picking is finished the yard is blown for the final time. In fact I’d be very surprised if they finished before you did. When I had my business you wouldn’t find a single leaf in your yard when I was finished., and that takes time Luckily where I work now it’s a straight, quick blow with none of the fussiness required.
Fair enough. But maybe it shouldn’t be the same work? Maybe expectations should change regarding how tidy a lawn should be. Also, have you tried any of the electric blowers?
Most lawn care people charge per hour, not by the type of work. It really doesn’t matter to them if you want your yard raked for an entire day or blown for a couple of hours. They’ll do it either way.
I haven’t tried electric only because the powers that be where I work haven’t bought one. I’d have nothing against them as long as they hold a charge for more than an hour.
Glad to hear this. Tons of people use them where I live and I’d be happy to see them phased out. Whatever happened to just using a pushbroom anyway?
Not exciting enough, I guess.
Every Sunday afternoon, most months of the year unless there is snow, a guy in our neighborhood makes money by yard work that includes several hours of loud leaf blowing. I long for a Sunday afternoon without hours of that noise!
So do I!!!
Loathe the damn things, and sadly I am complicit since I am the power equipment buyer at the company I work for and have supplied our customers with untold blowers and trimmers over the years. I also buy shovels and potting soil so that is my redeeming quality. We carry the battery equipment now but it is slow to catch on with the mow-blow dudes, though it has slowly started to move this year. I would gladly donate a leaf rake and a broom to all the faux gardeners who have managed to train their customers in my neighborhood that every leaf and blade of grass has to go. I applaud every effort to ban this equipment .
Aren’t you in California? If so your mow-blow dudes will have to start adjusting, I guess.
I have only electric blowers that I only use to blow the grass off my mower deck. I am sure there are many reasons to ban gas-powered blowers, but landscapers will get used to battery-powered or electric blowers just the same. Like you said, they got along without them for many years. thanks for sharing!
I’m glad you agree.
Once more, it’s such a pleasure to read your post, Jason, as well as the comments.
The leaf blowers are very noisy, emit pollutants, blow sand and dust (pesticides, mold, animal fecal matter and other lovely substances) in the air… and “clean” even too well. Yes, even though I live in a rural area far from neighbours, I would ban them.
Hello to Chicago and surroundings! My son is now in Chicago for some days because of his work. A thrilling experience! 🙂
I hope he enjoys his visit here! Unfortunately, this is not the best season in Chicago, especially if you like outdoor activities. There are public skating rinks, though. Maybe he will visit again when the weather is warmer.
Air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution, soil pollution, acid rain, junk food, space junk, trashed oceans, depletion of natural resources, and so forth. We’re gonna pollute ourselves right out of existence! Ban those blowers!
Seems like one positive step, anyways.
Jason, I never understood why leaves are blown by humans in the first place! A vacuum would be better and then the contents deposited on the compost heap. When we lived for two years in California in the 1980s, I was always annoyed when our Saturday afternoons were interrupted by the crew (hired by the townhouses where we rented) revved up their leaf blowers and for a seemingly endless half hour blew fallen leaves. Thirty five years later, and leaf blowers seem as popular as ever.
It’s really maddening.
We have a very large garden, and we usually clear leaves with rakes. But my husband does pull out the gas blower on occasion. It is very loud, and I don’t like it. He has tried a couple of electric ones, but they were frustrating and just could not get the job done. I think that someone very smart could come up with a good blower with reduced noise and air pollution and still have the power and durability to service large areas.
Well, maybe the electric ones will be improved so they have more power.
I agree! And then the people who use them probably head to the gym to work out. Well, not the landscapers. I’ve tried using one, and it killed my back, which leaves me wondering, why not just rake?! Or, leave the leaves, to feed the soil.
Right, what drives me crazy are the landscapers who blow the lawn cuttings and leaves every week through the summer. That really makes no sense, does far more harm than good.
Around where I live the weekends are filled with the sound of petrol-driven gardening tools. Hedge trimmers, chain saws, leaf blowers, lawn mowers, shredders, strimmers. That’s before you add on all the construction noise from people having extensions, additions and outbuildings put up. Our previous house backed on to a cemetery, I didn’t find it creepy for very long and to give them credit, they were very quiet as they didn’t have need of such tools.
I’d ban the things in a heartbeat. We don’t have the problem on that scale here.xxx
Then you’re lucky, I’d say.
I’m all for banning them!
One of my next door neighbors uses theirs every single day from spring to fall. The driveway must not have a single leaf on it. Ever. They will use it in the dark in the summer, just when the fireflies are active and the night sounds overtake the day.
Every fall, three neighbors use them for hours on end to “rake” their leaves. It’s maddening.
Ban them all!
We should have a bonfire of the leaf blowers!
Sign me up to agitate for the leaf-blower ban! I only have two neighbors at the end of my dirt road in the Maine woods, and both of them use leaf blowers to clean up their yards in the fall. I don’t see the point; we live in the woods! They blow the leaves out of their yards and into the nearby woods, where the next windy storm picks them up and blows them back into the open spaces. I do pick up leaves that pile up in doorways or on walkways, but I’ll stick with my good old-fashioned human-powered rake.
Tidying up the woods with leaf-blowers. Ha! Maybe they are Trump supporters.
One of the so-called ‘landscape’ companies I worked for (briefly) could use only electric blowers in Carmel, so got comparably loud generators to operate their electric blowers.
Hmm. Unintended consequence, I guess.
Neighbors did not complain for a long time. I would not inspect the sites like I was supposed to, because I was too embarrassed to be affiliated with that.
I make my living as a personal gardener. I love the peace and quiet as I tend to my client’s gardens. When the lawn crews descend, I can barely think, and try to understand the length of time they use these things. Every tiny piece of debris must be blown into oblivion. It seems to me that the guys using them are enjoying it, although I can’t imagine why.
I suspect the same thing – it’s a kind of little boy sensation of directing all this power and scattering all before you.
Good to hear someone speak good sense about this issue. I am in the midst of trying to stop leaf blowers being using during Covid 19 lockdown in the UK. I cannot believe the sight of a worker without wearing any mask, blasting everything including his own breath just feet from my windows (where is the air-intake I wonder). Scary. I am reading about how many places have now banned them in the US – time for the same here I think, or at least some sensible controls – like not spreading SARS. Leafblowers are an absolute menace. Can’t seem to get any sense from the landowner.
Good point. I imagine that they might spread the virus by air very efficiently.
OMG I hate gas leaf blower so much, we don’t get a lot of nice summer days up hear in Seattle so they’re a rare commodity and almost every time the sun comes out and I decide to sit outside the incessant roar of leaf blowers starts up and chases me back inside my house. Even inside with the doors and windows closed I can’t escape the din of those infernal machines! I bought a powerful electric blower that I use to keep my gutters clean and dust off the walkway, other than that I give the yard a quick rake and call it good. If you really insist on blowing every speck off of the lawn at least use an electric blower, the modern cordless ones are nearly as powerful as a good gas powered blower and far less annoying. The batteries are not that expensive, it’s well worth it. If you need to use a generator to charge the batteries, Honda’s line of inverter generators are very popular and extremely quiet. Similar products from cheaper brands are widely available too.
Our local city council is supposed to take up further restrictions on gas leaf blowers on Monday. Though the landscapers tend to ignore the restrictions already in place.
As I sit here, Monday morning and look out of the window of my apartment, I see SIX (yes six) “landscapers” wandering around in a pack. Each of these “landscapers” has a gas powered leaf blower, and they are full blast even blowing the sides of our apartments!! I have many many times attempted to discuss this with the powers that be, and I not alone. However, nothing gets done and on EVERY Monday morning starting at 9:30 this entire complex becomes a haven for noise pollution. I work from home, oftentimes via the cell, and it becomes impossible to hear the customers (who are already upset and complaining regarding retail stores), to then be cursed out regarding the lovely din of the leaf blowing madmen, who one can only hope God punishes via deafness (I don’t really mean that, but karma being what it is and all). Anyway, please sign me up as yet another noise pollution created lunatic!
They annoy me so much I built an entire website devoted to them!!
Check it out here https://www.worstoffender.com/