FAQs
Isn’t this just a “first-world problem,” for “people with too much time on their hands?”
No. The indifference to the health and safety of the workers reflects more of a “first-world” attitude.
For the residents who hire lawn crews, the emissions and noise of two-stroke engines are a momentary inconvenience — or one they don’t notice at all.
The people most at risk to health damage from gas-engine emissions, the spray of fine particulates, and ear-damaging noise are the lawn workers who operate gas leaf blowers all day. Typically low-wage, non-English speaking, and unlikely to be covered by health insurance, they often they use the equipment without ear protection. Indifference to this dangerous equipment implicitly means discounting their long-term health concerns.
Have other cities tried this approach?
Yes, and this list is growing. Many small cities throughout the USA have banned gas-powered leaf blowers. The include Santa Barbara, Palo Alto, West Hollywood, Los Altos, and Sonoma. But not just in California, all over the county there are bans in such diverse communities such as Brookline MA and Aspen CO. The largest and in the United States is Los Angeles and an increasing number of other cities are following suit. Recently Washington DC instituted a ban on gas powered leaf blowers. Here is the full list of communities.
Noise is My biggest Concern. Can we just restrict the Work Hours or Limit the Leaf Blowers to the Quiet Ones?
Limiting the work hours was attempted and it didn’t work. Limiting the Leaf Blowers to noise levels doesn’t work either. For example the city of Houston has set a max dB level of 70, but it can’t be enforced so it’s as if it doesn’t exist. Also neither of these addresses the air quality issue. The ban on gas blowers will achieve all these objectives.
Is there any realistic alternative?
Definitely yes, and increasingly so. The revolution in batteries has rapidly driving down the cost and weight, and driving up the power and durability. Lawn-equipment manufacturers are responding with a rapid sequence of new clean, dramatically quieter leaf blowers and other equipment. And many cities across the country, including at least 25 in California alone, have already mandated this shift.
Can battery blowers do the job?
Yes. At least one company working in Houston has been doing it since 2016. In fact, not only are his blowers battery powered, his mowers and trimmers are also. He says the money he saves in gasoline goes for extra batteries so they go all day:
Clean Air Lawn Care Story in the Chronicle
How can lawn equipment be important enough to care about?
Compared with trucks, automobiles, and power plants, two-stroke engines are a relatively small portion of total fossil-fuel use and polluting emissions. But they are an anomaly on the modern environmental scene: At a time when car, truck, and aircraft engines are becoming dramatically cleaner and more efficient, and when power plants are moving to more sustainable energy sources, two-stroke engines are grossly dirty, dangerous, wasteful, and polluting. The easiest benchmark comparison: using a standard two-stroke engine for 30 minutes puts out as much dangerous aerial pollutants as driving a modern Ford F-150 pickup truck for some 3800 miles.
Because of their dirty inefficiency, two-stroke engines have been phased out of nearly all uses other than lawn equipment. The National Park Service has outlawed them for most boat engines on public waters. Scooter and motorcycle makers have moved beyond them. As part of their environmental clean-up plans, many Asian and Latin American cities with serious air pollution problems have outlawed two-stroke engines. These bans have taken effect in cities in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and many Latin American countries. Systems too dirty for the people of Bangkok or Manila have outlived their usefulness in Houston.
Is noise any more than a nuisance?
Yes. Increasing public-health evidence shows that rising exposure to urban and suburban noise has measurable effects on physical and mental health, especially in children and older populations. View this study for more information: Environmental Noise Pollution in the United States: Developing an Effective Public Health Response.
Apart from the effects on workers, are any other groups of people especially vulnerable to the effects of this outdated equipment?
Yes. As with many other environmental stressors, very young and very old people are the most susceptible. Precisely because their bodies are developing so quickly, children can be disproportionately affected by fumes, aerosol contaminants, dust, and even noise.
A joint letter from doctors in the Pediatric Environmental Health Unit at Mt. Sinai hospital, urging a ban on gas-powered leaf blowers, listed a range of their harmful effects on children. It included this passage about noise:
"The intense, high frequency noise that leaf blowers generate can cause loss of hearing in the workers who operate these machines and can also affect hearing in children and other persons. The ears of infants and young children are especially vulnerable to the high intensity noise that leaf blowers produce because their auditory systems are undergoing rapid growth and development, and these developmental processes are easily disrupted."