Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I understand the argument about noise and air pollution, but I think there are bigger fish to fry here. Why just go after leaf blowers? How about lawn mowers themselves, tractors, motorcycles, boats, trains, planes, ... weed eaters?
Because leaf blowers are the worst polluters by far, and there has been consensus in communities to ban them outright because of this fact.
I do believe the pro gas weed eaters are also very bad polluters, but not nearly as ubiquitous as the leaf blower, nor quite as bad pollution-wise.
Motorcycles are quite efficient, as are trains.
A (very steep) carbon tax is the most viable tool to slow global warming/climate change which will make these other polluters obsolete some day. Then we have to invent some way to take all this carbon back out of the atmosphere and put it back in the ground. It's possible we can save ourselves (many climate scientists say we have already passed the point of no return - with millennia or more until the earth ecosystems becomes stable again and along with that, stabile civilization), although unlikely at this point.
I understand the argument about noise and air pollution, but I think there are bigger fish to fry here. Why just go after leaf blowers? How about lawn mowers themselves, tractors, motorcycles, boats, trains, planes, ... weed eaters?
Maybe it's subjective but leaf blower noise is far more obnoxious than any of those.
Two-stroke engines like those used in leaf blowers may be bad polluters but I don't think it's such a big deal on leaf blowers because they are used so infrequently. My old gas blower used maybe a half gallon of gasoline per year. The main reason they stink is their obnoxious loud sound.
Maybe it's subjective but leaf blower noise is far more obnoxious than any of those.
Two-stroke engines like those used in leaf blowers may be bad polluters but I don't think it's such a big deal on leaf blowers because they are used so infrequently. My old gas blower used maybe a half gallon of gasoline per year. The main reason they stink is their obnoxious loud sound.
Used infrequently? I beg to differ. They are used every day by landscaping crews all across greenville all year long, not to mention all the homeowners that now own one. Just the three neighbors around me probably ran theirs for close to 30 hours the past 5 days (wooded neighborhood with tons of bright green lawn).
Remember, "30 minutes creates more emissions than driving a F-150 pickup truck 3800 miles."
So just three neighbors around me basically put a f-150's lifetime of emissions (if it were make it to 228,000 miles) in just a few days - and all right around our homes. It doesn't take much.
I bought a leaf vacuum off of Craigslist this year and it works a lot better than the leaf blower ever did and is significantly quieter as well (although it is still noisy). It also mulches the leaves which makes them easier to compost. I have a corded electric leaf blower/vac (with a really long cord) and use that along with the rake to get the leaves out of the flower beds so I can then get them with the leaf vacuum. We have 15-20 large oaks in our yard and cleaning up leaves is always a difficult task. I'd leave them in place but the volume we have would kill the grass and all of our landscape plants. The leaves do make fantastic compost - have a huge batch already started
I don't know that banning gas blowers is practical but requiring small gas engines to meet stricter emissions and noise standards makes sense to me as someone that's been woken up before 9 AM on the weekend by noisy yard equipment.
What type of leaf vacuum are you talking about? We had a cheap one years ago and it wasn't worth the effort.
Used infrequently? I beg to differ. They are used every day by landscaping crews all across greenville all year long, not to mention all the homeowners that now own one. Just the three neighbors around me probably ran theirs for close to 30 hours the past 5 days (wooded neighborhood with tons of bright green lawn).
Remember, "30 minutes creates more emissions than driving a F-150 pickup truck 3800 miles."
So just three neighbors around me basically put a f-150's lifetime of emissions (if it were make it to 228,000 miles) in just a few days - and all right around our homes. It doesn't take much.
One type of emissions (unburned hydrocarbons, I believe) may be greater than a F-150 driving 3800 miles. But not all or even most types of emissions. That just doesn't make sense. For example, there's just no way that a quart of gasoline in a blower can emit more carbon than a F-150 burning 146 gallons of gasoline (over the stated 3800 miles).
Compare the gasoline burned by all the landscaping crews blowing leaves across Greenville against all the fuel burned by all the trucks driving through Greenville. There's several orders of magnitude difference.
One type of emissions (unburned hydrocarbons, I believe) may be greater than a F-150 driving 3800 miles. But not all or even most types of emissions. That just doesn't make sense. For example, there's just no way that a quart of gasoline in a blower can emit more carbon than a F-150 burning 146 gallons of gasoline (over the stated 3800 miles).
Compare the gasoline burned by all the landscaping crews blowing leaves across Greenville against all the fuel burned by all the trucks driving through Greenville. There's several orders of magnitude difference.
A leaf blower is equivalent to about 30 cars/trucks in terms of CO emissions - look it up. Cars have emissions standards, blowers do not.
If you look at it as taking 30 cars off the road per blower, it makes even more sense to ban them. What a return on emissions reduction!
A very steep gas/carbon tax that goes into a fund that buys back all the worst-polluting machines from users as well as subsidizing electric products is the best solution to stopping emissions.
If they'd just get together and do all the noise and air polluting on one day, I think I could stand it - even if breathing might be difficult.
But on Monday the condo on the left has their landscaping done. On Tuesday ours is done. On Wednesday the OTHER condo - on the right - has theirs done. On Thursday they do theirs across the street. And so on...
So you never get a nice quiet summer's day to sit out and enjoy the greenery and gardens, which is why we have the stuff, right? Something's wrong here.
One type of emissions (unburned hydrocarbons, I believe) may be greater than a F-150 driving 3800 miles. But not all or even most types of emissions. That just doesn't make sense. For example, there's just no way that a quart of gasoline in a blower can emit more carbon than a F-150 burning 146 gallons of gasoline (over the stated 3800 miles).
Compare the gasoline burned by all the landscaping crews blowing leaves across Greenville against all the fuel burned by all the trucks driving through Greenville. There's several orders of magnitude difference.
Gasoline engines in cars have strict emission standards applied. Many cars now emit exhaust that is cleaner than the air they take in from the surrounding environment.
In contrast, the 2 cycle engines in leaf blowers, weed eaters, and similar lawn equipment have basically *zero* emissions standards.
It's not hard to believe that a 2 cycle engine running for 30 minutes expels more pollutants than a car running for several thousand miles.
I paid a fraction of the price for a new one but it was in almost new condition. The hose part doesn't work very well. The vacuum from driving over the leaves like a lawn mower works very well. The chipper part is pretty good at chipping up smaller branches that the vacuum won't pick up. The bag does fill pretty quickly but I wouldn't really want it to have a bigger bag because it is pretty heavy when full of leaves.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
