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The case against leaf blowers
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This article is posted as a public service. Leafblowers are a matter of public health but one that will require changes in the law to fix. In the event any or all of the following material can be of use to somebody in their efforts to ban leaf blowers, PLEASE USE IT. It is with this intent that I write the following. The text is my own and contains references to laws and studies. The images were generated by software for this web page and not copyrighted by me. As far as I am concerned, you can copy this word for word and use as much and as often as you wish. (If you find a typo, please fix it though.)
The following is the opinion of Jack Tarrant, Attorney at Law. It is based on personal experience, extensive research and his legal training.
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By now we have all heard the shrill scream of a machine being used to blow debris during yard work. These leaf blowers (more accurately “dirt” blowers) save a little effort for the user but cause several different types of pollution as a result. Is this pollution sufficient to require a ban on leafblowers? In a word, yes. Will they? Yes, but it will take a lot of effort from people who are sick and tired of the pollution and noise. And we have to be willing to avoid using these machines and avoid hiring people who use them.
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As a frame of historical reference, a number of years ago, the noise pollution of automobiles became intolerable to people. Those that knew how bad it was lobbied to fix it. They succeeded. All cars are now required to have mufflers.
Years later, automobiles, due to the air pollution they create, were required to be equipped with catalytic converters which burn off some of the harmful exhaust pollutants. Now everyone drives a car with an expensive catalytic converter in the exhaust flow. It adds significantly to the cost of cars.
We banned lead in paint as we noticed it caused brain damage in children, even though it made the paint better. No more lead in paint.
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There was a great fire retardant used all over for decades called asbestos. It prevented untold numbers of fires and saved untold lives, but it also causes cancer and has been banned.
Recently, smoking cigarettes, an activity enjoyed by many, many more people than how many use leafblowers, was successfully banned in bars and public spaces due to health concerns from the second hand smoke. This affects millions of people.
We, as humans, eventually notice things that are bad for us.
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We passed laws to force everyone to have car insurances so that everyone would be financially responsible drivers.
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Then we passed laws to force everyone to have health insurance so everyone could go to the doctor.
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We did these things because they made our lives cleaner, safer, and more healthy.
It has come the time to remove another human danger. Leaf Blowers. Leaf Blowers are a health menace and must be banned at their source, the manufacturing and importation of them. They create more air and noise pollution than automobiles. They pollute our air by generating their own deadly chemicals and blowing others onto our property exposing us to unwanted and unwarranted dangers.
Benjamin Franklin said that it is alarming how long a truth could be known and understood before it is acted upon.
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I am simarly alarmed at how long we have allowed leafblowers to pollute our lives. I am somewhat optimistic though, as I see state activity, like in California, banning the sale of the little screaming two stroke motors. And there is local activity as hundreds of communities limit or ban the use of leafblowers. Banning leafblowers is not some far-out crazy notion. It is being done right now in places where people have summoned the courage and taken the initiative. It is on a par with banning smoking in public places, lead in paint and cars without mufflers or catalytic converters. Yes it will cause great gnashing of teeth, but these machines must be eliminated.
The delay in eradicating leaf blowers is caused by a couple of factors. One factor is that people realize they are bad but keep using them anyway because it makes their job a little bit easier. This includes the tens of thousands of yard crews that have descended on Houston alone. People knew smoking in bars was bad too but still did it until it was outlawed. People knew lead in paint was bad but used it for years before it was banned. As for car mufflers, the incredible noise of car engines stimulated develoment of mufflers almost simultaneously with cars but it took years before they were required by law.
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Ben Franklin was so right. Many know how bad leafblowers are, but we are slow to act to stop them because of a perceived convenience.
But lets take a look at the problems created by the use of these Leaf Blowers and why, just like cars without mufflers, lead paint, adbestos, smokey bars, and uninsured drivers, they must be made illegal.
Air Pollution of the machine itself - Lets discuss the pollution of just the leafblower machine itself with the nozzel pointed toward the sky.
- The California Air Resources Board (CARB for short ) determined that an hour of leaf blower use equated to 1100 miles of driving. California tends to be out front of the rest of the county in regards to pollution control efforts. I’ll talk about that more later.
-Another study showed that leaf blowers are 300 times more polluting than a pickup truck. That means that 15 minutes of leafblower use pollutes as much as 75 hours, MORE THAN THREE DAYS, of a pickup truck running in your driveway.
- Just this one pollution aspect was enough for California to ban them. In a very short time, new “Small Off Road Engines” or SORES as they call them will no longer be sold in California. Unlike the rest of the country, California can enact these bans because it was proactive in enacting pollution legislation in the years before the fed took it over and that state received an exemption from the federal air pollution laws because California’s pollution laws were already more restrictive than the new federal rules. All other states rely on the fed for the creation of pollution standards.
-Numerous other municipalities already ban or limit the use of SORES by using deed restrictions, homeowners associations and some city ordinances. Even our US capital of Washington DC is enacting laws limiting leafblower use. This is not novel. And, the efforts were successful with just the pollution of the machine itself being sufficient to get the laws changed.
But these machines are so much worse than just the air pollution the motors create. There is also a fair amount of gunk the machines create, gummed up air and fuel filters, as well as the fact that they don't last very long and the machines themselves end up in landfills.
Leafblowers are a manufacturers' uber-profitable solution to a problem that really does not exist at all. Their mechanical construction makes it difficult to make them much quieter and/or less polluting. It makes them heavy and larger, negating their advantage and burdening their user.
Leafblowers create other types of pollution too!
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Air pollution in the cloud: Dirt and other Contaminants are blown into the air by leafblowers. Here’s what is in the dust cloud getting blown onto our bodies and into our lungs every day.
-pesticides and herbicides – every poison put out to control bugs such as ants, mosquitos, grub worms, cinch bugs, fleas. Also many different types of poisons are put out to control weeds and other unwanted growth.
-fertilizers – many people, especially people who take good care of their yards, use fertilizers. It is well known that fertiliizers are poisonous to humans and animals, especially the nitrates which are a major constituant of all fertilizers
-Fecal matter - Humans (and some pets) are the only animals that poop inside. Every other animal poops outside. Every one. Obviously, leaf blowers blow poop back up into the air. Imagine how much pigeon poop alone the guy in the picture above is blowing into the air.
-Bugs, actually Every animal but Humans (and some pets) die and decompose outside. Obviously, leaf blowers blow animal parts that have fallen to the ground to decompose and become part of the soil, BACK INTO THE AIR
-Pollens- Every plant that produces seeds produces pollen. People and pets often have allegies to one, more, or many, pollens. Pollen falls to the ground and decomposes UNLESS it is blown back in to the air by a leafblower.
-Dirt and sand- Leafblowers create clouds of dust that every one of us has seen. That cloud of dust falls on everything in the vicinity of the leafblower. It falls on our homes, our cars, our bodies. It is a grit that causes premature wear on joints and hinges, makes our homes dingly looking, makes it impossible to keep our cars clean for even a day if left outside.
-Grass and Leaves- Finally the actual thing meant to be blown. Wouldn’t it be great if grass and leaves were blown only on the property where the leafblower is being used. Here, the point is that grass and leaves, when made into litter by lawn equipment then blown into the air by leafblowers, become airborn contaminants and if not contained solely within the property, are contaminates to others. No one wants their neighbors grass landing in their yard, or their neighbors leaves blown into the gutter in front of their house. But it happens every day, everywhere.
Of course, the users get the biggest dose. In addition to all the pollutants above, the user also breaths in 60,000 times the acceptable level of carcinogens, including Benzene, contained in the exhaust itself. That is mind boggling.
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Leafblowers cause other types of damage too!
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Damage to ecosystems- Leafblowers are utilized to remove leaves, even mulched ones, that provide shelter and food for an entire ecosystem of life that serves us to break down and return to the soil the nutrients that naturally fall to the earth. These critters and biological processes that help us on the ground are killed by leafblowers. This deprives yards and trees of vital nutrients. Decayed leaves and other matter are the primary source of food for our lawns. The cover they provide protects the grass roots as well as the homes for a great diversity of small critters. For example, fireflies, a favorite memory from my youth, lay their eggs in decaying leaves and after hatching, live for a time in the moist soil covered by leaves. Leafblowers remove the leaves and the eggs. Leafblowers also dry out the ground where the hatched fireflies live, killing them. It is one of the reasons we don't see fireflies anymore. Leafblowers damage our lawns by blowing away the leaves and the critters essential for lawn health.
Hurricane Force Winds – in addition to killing the ecosystem, leafblowers denude and compact the soil. The wind and heat dry the dirt causing it to become impacted. This makes it harder to grow anything and makes it more likely that rainfall will run off rather that be absorbed. This leads to increased likelihood of flooding. It is not rocket science. Our weather people on TV often warn us after a dry spell that we can expect increased flooding due to the state of our soil.
Clogged AC units. I’ve not heard this discussed before but our outdoor ac units work by having a fan that sucks air past very fine, thin, cooling fins. When a leafblower is used around these units and the A/C is running, like almost always during summer here, the fan sucks in that dust and debris. The dust and debris gets lodged in the fins. This clogs the fins, reduces the effectiveness of the A/C unit and can cause it to overheat and shut down. A major service that A/C techs provide is cleaning of these fins and coils. That is how important clean cooling fins are to the life of the a/c unit. Leafblowers cause untold damage and increased energy consumpton by contaminating the cooling fins of our a/c units. In Houston, this is inexcusable bordering on criminal.
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Different types of Land Pollution- I’ve touched on this but want to directly address the land pollution matter. When grass is deliberately blown into the street, it is littering just the same as thowing a fast food bag or a drink bottle is littering. Leafblower proponents will assert this is done to facilitate collection of the leaves and clippings. Yet only a portion of the blown material is ever collected. Never, as it is impossible, is all the material that has been littered into the street, picked up. Many times, though, no effort at all is made to pick up the stuff blown into the streets. We have all seen this. It cannot be denied. I saw paid lawn crews blowing grass into the street twice just this morning during a short, just minutes long, drive. It seems that a common practice is to make a final blow after blowing initially then mowing and push this remaining debris into the street.
Bad Conduct – Part of this land pollution problem is that leafblowers appear to allow people to act in ways they would not otherwise. As just mentioned, we have all seen grass getting blown into the street by a person with a leafblower. I have taken video of it.
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When I was a young person, people either did their own yards or would hire a local kid to do it. I had a couple of yards I did weekly. I learned the value of a dollar and the independence of having ones own money. It was an important lesson and has helped me through life. Now, however, it seems yard mowing has turned into an industry whereby two or three adult men descend upon the same sized yards I did as a kid, or smaller, but with a pickup truck and a trailer full of motorized equipment. Each person uses some machine, be it a weed eater, leaf blower or mower the entire time on site. Rakes and brooms have all but disappeared. The machines run the entire time.
And therein lies part of the problem. I do not believe it is common that someone with a broom or a rake would so blatantly move dirt and all the other stuff mentioned above onto the street or another persons property. Even as a 12 year old, I knew that was wrong. There is a physical and obvious connection between a person and a rake or a broom that clarifies to all exactly where the debris is going. We are touching the debris. We are controlling it.
However, leafblowers allow the user to suspend belief. The jet stream from a leafblower is invisible. It is almost as if that debris is just magically moving itself into the street or another persons yard and the operator is oblivious to where the debris is going. It could not be the fault of the leafblower operator. After all, it’s just the wind. Who controls the wind? I cannot count the times I have seen a paid lawn worker turn his head one way and blow debris another way, in a feeble effort to act like he did not notice that he was polluting the street or someone else’s property. I bet we have all seen exactly this misbehavior.
What has made this so bad that they need to be banned? Simply put, like cigarettes in a bar, leafblowers have been abused. Cigarettes would still be allowed if patrons had only smoked one or two during their visit. However, as the drinks flow, the cigarettes get lit. In a long evening of drinking, patrons would smoke many times. In abusing cigarettes, they abused their privilege to use them in public. And, in the end, lost that privilege. Lawn crews methodically and systematically use the leafblower excessively. These machines are not supposed to used to rake the grass or around flowers and bushes. That kills the grass, the flowers and the bushes. Yet, the current procedure among lawn crews is to blow everything with a leafblower onto the grass or street, mow, then blow again to clean up the mowing debris (this time, often blowing the remaining debris into the street to clean the curb in front of the house, or even across the street so as not to mess up their job.) Blow, mow, blow. That is the way it is done now. No rakes, no brooms, just machines. That is at least twice as much noise and pollution as is reasonable. And, it nearly always ends with a shot of debris into the street. If anyone has the gaul to deny this, I will happily drive them around Houston for a day to see it. I have seen it being done by two separate crews on my short street in the last 30 minutes.
In my neighborhood, one worker of each crew is using a leaf blower the entire time the crew is on site. That means 20 to 30 minutes of leaf blowing for every yard they do all day long. Remember our pollution comparison above? That comes to around 2000 miles of driving a car or 150 hours of a car running in your driveway FOR JUST ONE YARD! Yard crews need to mow 10 or more yards a day to get everyone paid. That equates to 20,000 miles of driving pollution or 1500 hours of a car idling and polluting in your driveway. EVERY DAY!!!! Now, consider also that a weedeater, the same motor as a leafblower, is also running some or all of that time. That is even more air and noise pollution, often, at least here, occurring simultaneously with the leafblower being used.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME? HOW IS THE LEGAL?
Nope. Not kidding at all. There are ample studies on this now. These are the facts. I titled this section of this paper as Bad Conduct because this kind of pollution, created by a business that provides a purely vanity service like yard manicuring, is indeed, bad conduct.
How is it legal? This amount and kind of pollution IS NOT LEGAL. It is just that there is almost no regulation and absolutely no enforcement of any kind of rules regarding landscapers. It is open season year around for lawn crews to do, literally, whatever they want. I heard one at 6 am this past weekend over at a nearby school. The school is surrounded by homes. There is absolutely no enforcement of any laws already on the books that could be brought to bear to control this problem. That is why the only real solution is a ban on these machines such that they are no longer available.
Trespass- I have never given anyone permission to blow contaminants onto my family, me, my stuff, or my home. Have you given anyone such permission? Should lawn crews and other leafblower users be allowed, as they assume themselves to be now, to blow contaminants onto our public streets or onto another persons’ yard without any ramifications? Of course not!!!! The law does not punish a property owner if his leaves fall on another person’s property. HOWEVER, deliberately moving waste and debris onto the property of another without their permission or onto a public space IS illegal.
Nuisance - Texas legal precedent characterizes a nuisance as a “condition that substantially interferes with the use and enjoyment of land by causing unreasonable discomfort or annoyance to persons of ordinary sensibilities attempting to use and enjoy it.” Holubec, 111 S.W.3d at 37; see also Justiss, 397 S.W.3d at 153 (citing Schneider, 147 S.W.3d at 269) (same); Barnes, 353 S.W.3d at 763 (quoting Schneider, 147 S.W.3d at 269) (same); Schneider, 147 S.W.3d at 269 (quoting Holubec, 111 S.W.3d at 37) (same)
-If I am eating outside and a lawn crew comes and starts blowing the yard next door, I am not going remain outdoors because I do not want to eat the contaminants, the bug parts, the poop, the fertilizers, that is being blown into the air. Therefore, I am not going to be able to use and enjoy my land. That is a nuisance.
-I personally am not an allergy sufferer. But I pity those who are and who are affected by the blowing into the air of allergens and contaminants. Leaf blowers are a direct and unconscionable assault and batter on allergy sufferers.
-I do not wish to have my stuff, whatever it is, covered in dust by a non-caring leaf blower user. And if that person is being paid and is covering my stuff with dust, they are creating a nuisance. There is analogous case law that, I believe, has yet to be brought into the argument. They are primarily about industrial waste falling on private property. I would argue that yard debris created by a paid lawn crew is industrial waste and should not be transmitted in any way to another’s property.
Noise- Another form of nuisance is excessive noise. The American Medical Association has recommend that people with sensitivities to loud noises stay away from leafblowers and other small engine equipment. It is well known that leafblowers are loud. Over one hundred years ago, we started requiring mufflers on cars and then motorcycles. Humans are not meant to continually accept loud noise. Loud noise has even been used by militaries as a tool against an enemy.
The Center for Disease Control has stated that leafblowers can cause damage to ones hearing in as little as two hours. The louder and more frequent the use, the more damage that occurs. The people that use them know they are loud. Unless you are deaf, leafblowers hurt your ears. If a user thinks that volume of noise is acceptable or harmless, they are not being reasonable. It is bad behavior to knowingly and repetitively create a noise disturbance around peoples' homes, schools, parks and work.
The CDC has also stated that it is clearly dangerous to the user as well. So, in a very real sense, it is also bad behavior to hire an employee and systematically and repetitively require them to submit to such bad noise and air pollution as part of their job. Are their employers providing insurance? Will they be available in the future when the employee makes a claim against them for cancer or deafness caused by excessive small motor use? I personally think it unlikely on both counts.
OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has reported for years that loud noises cause stress and have a negative effect on cognitive functions like focus and communication.
-As for me, I am one of those affected by the noise. Both the high whine and the subsonic pulses created by the tiny motors and excessive use disturb my concentration and cause anxiety. While not everyone is so affected, those of us that are usually struggle in silence because, since no snot is coming out of our nose, or blood leaking somewhere, our struggles are not easily recognized by others. Those subsonic pulses created by the motors are of a wavelength that penetrate walls and make it into our homes. Going inside, therefore, only offers partial relief for us who are so affected. We can still hear and feel the noise pollution.
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Litter – As mentioned above, we have all seen a leafblower user blowing grass into the street. In Texas one definition of "Litter" is: decayable waste from a public or private establishment, residence…Sec. 365.011 et seq. of the Texas Health and Safety Code
Sec. 365.012. ILLEGAL DUMPING…. (a) A person commits an offense if the person disposes or allows or permits the disposal of litter or other solid waste at a place that is not an approved solid waste site, including a place on or within 300 feet of a public highway, on a right-of-way, on other public or private property, or into inland or coastal water of the state.
-lawn debris, as it is decayable waste from a residence, is, therefore, litter. And no one could argue that our streets are approved solid waste dump sites. Putting grass in the streets is illegal, plain and simple. Blowing it onto a neighbor's property is, likewise, illegal. There it is, in black and white.
Unnecessary mowing and blowing. Finally, while not officially "bad conduct," keep in mind this leaf blowing is now being done regardless of the condition of the yard or the season. As the heat wave continues here in southeast Texas and elsewhere, yards are getting brown and vulnerable. Our lawn crews here nowadays typically do not reside in the US year around and rely on weekly mowing to make the most of their time here. They do not stop mowing and let the grass grow so that the blades can protect the roots. Instead, they hit the yards with the same heavy equipment and the same amount of leafblowing as if the yard were healthy. This is so devastating to the yards, directly causing deadly drying out of all vegetation. So, while this is, again, not illegal or actionable "bad conduct," it is irresponsible, negligent, and destructive. As for winter, the crews keep coming all winter to blow every leaf that falls and will run their heavy mowers over wet ground and dormant grass week after week, even right after a rain, pretending to mow what has not grown. When the grass is wet, it takes a significantly MORE amount of leafblower use to move it. More noise and more air and land pollution at a time when none of it is necessary.
Clearly, we cannot rely on the landscapers to police themselves in any way. The lack of any sort of regulation or enforcement of existing regulations as well as the compelling socio-economic factors driving them means landscapers will continue to use leafblowers and the related weedeaters (same motors remember) for as long as they are available.
Recently, my wife posited to me that the lawn crews get desensitized to the noise, smell, and flying cloud of stuff. I am sure their ears ring, mine has after using a gas weed eater. The professional user is commonly disregarding the harm to themselves. The bad thing is that this user also disregards the harm he is causing to others.
The nuisance machines will only go away through legislation banning them. California, the only state with the power to do so itself, HAS BANNED GAS LEAFBLOWERS AND ALL OTHER SMALL OFF-ROAD ENGINES (SORES) and no new ones will be sold as of 2024.
What about electric leafblowers? There is case against Electric Blowers too: Wouldn’t it be great if electric leaf blowers solved our problems. But they do not. Any leaf blower ban that excepts electric blowers will only address a part of the problem and not even solve that part. Electrics still consume power, although the generation is out-sourced to the power company, and they still make noise, although generally less. Today, that is.
For electric leaf blowers to take over from gas ones, they will ALSO have to be bigger and more powerful. As electric leaf blowers already emit significant noise, making them larger and more powerful will only make them as loud as gas ones.
Today, already, manufacturers are touting the "power" of their electrics in relation to gas machines, using numbers like cubic feet of air blown per minute to demonstrate comparative power. Therefore, as electric leaf blowers get big enough to replace gas ones, they will blow every single contaminant into the air with the same ferocity as gas leaf blowers. They will consume at or near the same amount of fuel, although generated elsewhere. They will generate significant battery waste in addition to consuming that remotely generated electricity. They will be misused in the same way. They will be overused and cause the same pollution, the same soil damage, the same littering. In short, they are not the answer. As they become capable of replacing gas leaf blowers, electrics will be every bit the source of irritation that gas leaf blowers are today.
Benjamin Franklin was lamenting the human condition of procrastination in the quote near the beginning of this article. However, I also see encouragement that eventually we do get sick enough that we WILL act and leaf blowers will be banned. The question is just how much longer we are going to suffer the inexcusable noise, air, and land pollution before that.
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David Dudley writes for Bloomberg.com, the world wide news source, and in a 2016 article calling the leaf blower "The Devil's Hair Dryer", he laments that the leaf blower makes assholes of us all. The user in causing the problem and the victims in complaining about it.
I would like to help anyone in their efforts to ban leaf blowers. I have included my contact information in the description below. Please feel free to get in touch. Just as smoking in bars, lead in paint, asbestos, and muffler-less cars have gone the way of the Dodo bird, so will leaf blowers. They are a manufacturers' uber-profitable solution to a problem that really does not exist at all. Their mechanical construction makes it difficult to make them much quieter and/or less polluting. Electrics need to go as well as they will be just as bad in almost every category when scaled up enough to replace gas leafblowers. A ban will take a lot of work by a lot of people. Current bans across America are the result of dedicated individuals who work for hours and hours for free spreading the word, contacting local governments, and lobbying lawmakers.
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Jack Tarrant
713 205-3176
