Problems with leaf blowers
Leaf blowers contribute to climate change, pollute the environment, and are harmful to human, animal and ecosystem health.
They are excruciatingly noisy
Anyone who has heard a leaf blower knows that the sound can set your teeth on edge. What many people don’t know is, the low-frequency noise from leaf blowers can contribute over time to hearing loss - something particularly concerning for landscapers.
Also, anyone near a leaf blower is being exposed to hydrocarbons from gasoline and oil, many of them carcinogens.
They produce harmful gases
A gas leaf blower’s (or lawn mower’s) two-stroke engine produces harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) at levels 124 times that of a truck or a car. Each cubic meter of exhaust from an idling two-stroke engine contained 60,000 times the safe level of exposure of benzene, a carcinogenic pollutant.
A US study in 2018 showed that gas-powered lawn and garden equipment (GLGE) produced 22,887,041 tonnes of CO2 per year. We cannot continue to use this equipment if we are to address the climate emergency.
