Leaf Blowers: An Environmental Nightmare
Anyone who had any ideas that leaf blowers would be an autumn-only yard tool has by now realized these obnoxious and noxious annoyances are taking over chores previously accomplished by more peaceful and environmentally friends means. Leaf blowers have become an extremely popular tool among landscapers and homeowners for moving any non-rooted plant matter from point A to point B.
From the first moment a leaf blower is started up, it’s a trouble maker. Their distinctive whining roar has made people wince and run for auditory shelter. Everyone knows how noisy leaf blowers are, but did you know that they are dangerously noisy? Creating sustained wind power sufficient to push leaves, grass clippings and pine cones off of lawns–up to 200 mph–doesn’t happen quietly. Even from 50 feet away, these machines often exceed 65 decibels. But its not just plant matter that succumbs to their wind velocity: Top soil is stripped away and decaying animal waste is disturbed. Between the debris, dirt and fecal matter kicked up by leaf blowers, large clouds of irritating, polluting particulate matter are created which can drift for up to several hundred feet impacting residents several blocks away from where the leaf blower is operating.
As if the most offensive impacts from leaf blowers, noise and dust, aren’t bad enough, lets not forget that most of them run on gas using 2 stroke engines from which major pollutants are exhausted unburned into the environment. Gas-powered leaf blowers emit as much smog as 17 cars according the American Lung Association!
Any way you look at it, the gas-powered leaf blower creates one problem after another.
Several cities have been successful in getting leaf blowers banned. If you’d like to initiate a ban in your city, check out the report below for helpful facts about their health and environmental impacts:
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