Your Property, Your Health, Your Community
Our message to property owners.
The transition to sustainable lawn care practices begins with you, the property owner. We’d like to inform you of the risks gas leaf blowers pose to your property and to your safety, and invite you to join our movement.
Switching your lawn service away from gas leaf blowers is a simple action, but it changes so much. Imagine helping vulnerable workers, your neighbors and your community’s climate goals in one move. If you’re ready to make the move, jump to the options.
Your Property
Gas-powered leaf blowers are not necessary for plant care. In fact, they have devastating impacts on your carefully planned landscaping. They strip top soil and mulch, spread ground toxins, disrupt local habitat, and result in greater water and fertilizer needs.
Time and again, we see how leaf blowers destroy the landscape and blow away precious topsoil and damage plants. We also get asked by our customers why the fertilizer just put down seems to have disappeared…leaf blowers are often the culprit!
-How Leaf Blowers Destroy Top Soil, Soil Alive
Your Health
Gasoline-powered leaf blowers use primitive 2-stroke engines, and they do not have the emission controls that cars and trucks do. As a result, operating a gas-powered leaf blower for one hour emits smog- forming pollution comparable to driving a new light-duty passenger car about 1100 miles – about the distance from Los Angeles to Denver.
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 cancer.
These emissions remain suspended in the air, close to the ground long after the operator is gone. Even if you are away while your lawn care contractor is working, you could still be breathing the substances they left behind when you return.
Your Community
Suppose the fumes go away while you are gone. “Away” means towards other people. The fumes 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 gas 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. Most directly impacted, however, are the workers who are required to use gas-powered leaf blowers by their employers.
Landscape workers face unequal burdens cleaning our yards and parks, and often, limited economic options. The gas leaf blower operators 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.
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
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. Modern safety gear has proven inadequate to protect workers from gas leaf blower noise.
Hearing loss is a big risk for anyone who operates a gas-powered leaf blower, but 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.
Visualize It
You might think a gas leaf blower just annoys a few neighbors for a few minutes. But the noise travels several city blocks, in all directions. This low-frequency noise penetrates walls and doors, creating an inescapable cacophony. This disturbs neighboring residents repeatedly throughout the day, within the walls of their own homes.
Removing even one gas leaf blower, the one used on your property, would greatly improve quality of life in your neighborhood!
Your Choice
You choose which landscaping service you use. You direct that service on which areas to service, which to leave alone, and so on. It is also in your power to say NO to gas-powered leaf blowers on YOUR property. Here are some alternatives:
- Tell your landscaper to use an electric leaf blower on your property. You may use our letter. Many property owners have purchased an electric leaf blower for their landscaper to use on their property.
- Let leaves lie. As leaves break down they provide a host of rich nutrients for your lawn. Letting the leaves build up under trees and shrubs to provide a natural mulch is the most sustainable alternative to blowing leaves away.
- Embrace imperfection. Excessive leaf blowing is customer-driven – many people demand that astro-turf look. Inform your landscaper that a few leaves in your driveway or other areas don’t bother you.
Take the Pledge
Your city government has asked for your help with the transition to sustainable lawn care: sign the San Carlos Let Leaves Lie pledge. The City of San Carlos has more information about its gas leaf blower replacement efforts on its Alternatives to Gas Leaf Blowers webpage.
A Footnote about Money
Yes, landscapers can still make money with electric leaf blowers. In fact, the wise landscapers already using them are enjoying much lower operating costs and higher profits, not to mention safer and happier workers.
Financial assistance is available for landscapers making the switch to electric through the Bay Area Air District and, soon, the City of San Carlos.
If you are worried about higher landscaping costs, consider what an alternative to gas blower service ultimately buys you: peace of mind.