Switching to battery-powered blowers and weed whips was the best thing I could have done for my workers.
-Arturo Valdivia, Public Services Supervisor, City of Coronado
Gas-powered leaf blowers are used virtually everywhere in our community, and they cause serious harms to workers, public health and our environment.
Hazardous Engine Exhaust
Gasoline-powered lawn and garden equipment does not have the emission controls that cars and trucks do. As a result, gas-powered lawn and garden equipment is a source of high levels of hazardous air pollutants. Gas-powered leaf blowers largely use primitive, dirty two-stroke engines, which were invented in the 1880s. More than 30% of its fuel/oil mixture gets emitted as an aerosol, unburned!
According to the EPA, extensive evidence exists on the adverse health effects of exhaust emissions and other fine particulates which include cardiovascular disease, stroke, respiratory disease, cancer, neurological conditions, premature death, and effects on prenatal development. Gas-powered leaf blower engine exhaust contains a host of toxins and carcinogens. Benzene, 1,3-butadiene, acetaldehyde, and formaldehyde increase the risk of a range of health problems, including:
- eye, skin, and respiratory tract irritation
- neurological effects
- lymphoma, leukemia, and other types of cancer
That’s just the start of it. They also emit hydrocarbons, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide, which mix with sunlight to create ground-level ozone, which can cause airway constriction, coughing, sore throat, shortness of breath, emphysema, bronchitis, and asthma. Carbon monoxide exposure can cause both mild and serious effects, from headaches, dizziness, weakness, and nausea to vomiting, disorientation, and worse.
It’s pretty bad. You have to be smelling that smoke all the time, and it can cause you a lot of health problems, allergies and getting sick all the time.
Noe Bautista, Bautista’s Landscaping, from KQED News
Then there’s the fine particulates (PM2.5), which lodge deep inside the lungs, causing or exacerbating asthma and other respiratory problems and increasing the risks of heart attacks, strokes, arrhythmia, and heart failure. The manufacturers don’t deny this, and advise people to use their blowers in a “well-ventilated area.” But first, workers will be inhaling high concentrations of all this, and then when it’s “blown away,” it doesn’t disappear–“away” means towards other people. It enters houses, workplaces and schools through open windows. Larger particulates can float in the air for hours to days, and fine particulates stay suspended in the air we breathe for as long as a week or more. Their concentrations decline over distance, but leaf blowers and other gas tools are constantly adding more, day after day, throughout the city. Exposure to elevated PM levels over the long term can reduce life expectancy by several years.
All these health impacts are even more serious for children, the elderly, and people with disabilities.
Extreme Noise
Gas-powered leaf blowers are loud! At the operator’s ear, they produce noise in the 90 – 100 decibel (dB) range. Prolonged or repeated exposure above 85dB, which is common with backpack gas-powered leaf blowers, can cause permanent hearing loss.1 Hearing loss is a big risk for anyone who operates a gas-powered leaf blower, but anyone else in an area where leaf blowers are used is also at risk because hearing loss is a function of both noise intensity and its duration. Even at a distance, their noise raises levels of stress hormones like cortisol, increasing anxiety, cognitive impairment, and the propensity for hostile behavior, elevating blood pressure and the risk of cardiovascular diseases, and compromising the immune system. Multiple studies have found a correlation between exposure to ambient noise over 55dB and a higher incidence of arterial hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.2 This is especially concerning for some people with sensory sensitivity. For example, the sound of a leaf blower causes some children with Sensory Processing Disorder to vomit or dive under the table. According to the American Green Zone Alliance Sustainable Land Care Certification course, gas-powered leaf blower noise severely harms Autistic people and those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Visualize It
You might think a leaf blower just annoys a few neighbors for a few minutes. But the noise travels several city blocks, in all directions. This map shows how just three leaf blowers impact hundreds of households. Yet a typical area this size will see many more leaf blowers on any given day, and often several at once, creating an inescapable cacophony disturbing residents repeatedly throughout the day, even within the walls of their homes.
Harms to Landscaping Workers
Landscape workers face unequal burdens cleaning our yards and parks, and often, limited economic options. The operators of gas leaf blowers are exposed to the same long list of health risks as residents, but at much higher levels. At “ground zero,” the worker faces extremely high concentrations of carbon monoxide and particulate matter and extreme and prolonged noise exposure.
Requiring their employers to switch to cleaner equipment is a matter of workplace safety and environmental justice. Eugene Jackson, head landscaper at University of Redlands in California, always wore a headset and other protective gear. According to medical screenings sponsored by the university, his years of exposure to leaf blower noise has cost Jackson 65 percent of his high-frequency hearing ability.
If you have never worn a two stroke leaf blower on your back, it is hard to imagine the effect the noise, exhaust and dust has on you after hours of use. It is a singular form of trauma for your ears and lungs
Ken Foster, Santa Cruz landscaper
Some who have obstructed a gas-powered leaf blower ban claim they are protecting landscaping workers. In effect, those obstructors are saying It’s fine for these low-wage workers to lose their hearing, risk cardiovascular disease and potentially live shorter lives, as long as a few people can have less expensive lawn service. The damage of long-term use of this primitive machinery falls overwhelmingly on those landscaping workers, many of who are recent immigrants. Resisting circumstances that primarily damage immigrant workers is a principal reason for banning gas-powered leaf blowers.3
Harms to the Planet
You might think a small machine would have small effects. But the gas-powered leaf blower uses a small engine with big impacts on our air, soils, and water.
Leaf blowers emit outsized levels of hydrocarbons from burned and unburned fuel, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and reactive organic gases. These go on to form low-level ozone, which causes the much-reviled brown smog that hovers over cities. And nitrogen oxides contribute to acid rain. Thanks to evaporation, leaf blowers even pollute while they’re off, sitting unused.
Meet the Ford Raptor
The Ford F-150 SVT Raptor Crew Cab is a 6.2 liter V8 powered truck weighing 6,200 pounds and has the aerodynamics of Mount Rushmore. Just one half-hour of running a leaf blower releases the same amount of hydrocarbons as driving a Raptor from north Texas to Anchorage, Alaska—3,887 miles.4
How can that be? Since the 1970s, we’ve reduced emissions from cars and trucks. However, small off-road engines, such as those from gas-powered leaf blowers, are incompatible with car and truck engine emissions controls and other technological advancements. As a result, the disparity between car and truck emissions and small engine emissions has grown greater over the past decades. In fact, the California Air Resources Board estimates that in 2020 smog-forming emissions of small off-road engines, like leaf blowers, surpassed those of light-duty passenger cars.
Gas-powered leaf blowers are outdated, have extreme impacts on our health and environment, and there are existing, superior alternatives. Yet, they are still widely used all around us. With cost-effective alternatives available, there’s no reason to delay any longer! When those cleaner alternatives are finally widespread, we wonder why we ever held on to the dirty ones so long.
Sources
- Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Too Loud! For Too Long! Loud noises damage hearing, https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/hearingloss/index.html
- European Heart Journal, Cardiovascular effects of environmental noise exposure, April 2014, Munzel, Gori, Babisch, Basner, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3971384/
- Why Eliminating Dirty Equipment is an Important Environmental Justice Measure, May 2021, Fallows, https://www.quietcleandc.com/qcdc-in-the-news/2021/5/26/civil-disobediance-and-leaf-blowers
- Emissions Test: Car vs. Truck vs. Leaf Blower, https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/emissions-test-car-vs-truck-vs-leaf-blower.html