Everybody hates leaf blowers!
As it turns out though, they, and other gas lawn equipment, pollute much more than anyone could ever imagine. According to the California Air Resource Board (CARB), in California these beasts spew out as much greenhouse gases as the state’s 14 million cars! (https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2021-12/2021%20SORE%20Fact%20Sheet.pdf). Furthermore, CARB reports that an hour of leaf blowing with a two stroke engine equals the amount of pollution spewed by a car driven 1,100 miles! Change a gas leaf blower to electric and you have just taken a couple cars off the road.
Over one hundred cities have banned leaf blowers. We have been in touch with Olympia council members, but they say they don’t have enough “bandwidth” to work on this issue. However, the Olympia Maintenance Department is switching over to electric. At this point, we are bringing our crusade to other jurisdictions.
We encourage everyone to spread the word about these over the top polluters. And if you’d like to work with us, shoot us an email.
Here is a good general article by James Fallows: https://fallows.substack.com/p/gas-powered-leaf-blowers-the-end
Thanks!
Mike Harburg (mhharburg@nullgmail.com) and
Terry Watness (terrywatness@nullcomcat.net)
Photo credit: Leaf Blowers 05, by Hector Alejandro, 2009. Wikimedia Commons. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Workers_with_leaf_blowers%2C_Georgia_Tech_Facilities_d.jpg/1024px-Workers_with_leaf_blowers%2C_Georgia_Tech_Facilities_d.jpg?20110723144610
