Quiet Clean Philly: Getting Rid of Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers
A new group, Quiet Clean Philly (QCP), is making considerable progress toward its goal of passing legislation to phase out gas-powered leaf blowers in the City of Philadelphia. Gas-powered leaf blowers are some of the most air and noise-polluting devices in regular use. These leaf blowers generate toxic air pollution in our neighborhoods, schools, and public spaces, and noise that far exceeds health and safety standards. These practices come with high costs for our health and environment.
Started in January 2023 and meeting monthly, the group has two co-chairs, Anne Dicker and Seth Liebermann, as well as several volunteers who have so far gotten endorsement from eleven local, regional, and national organizations, including the Community Netzero Education Project (see below). Quiet Clean Philadelphia is now working on establishing support from every region of the city. Through informational meetings with Residential Community Organizations (RCOs), their goal is to get an endorsement from at least 12 City Council members so that when a bill is presented to whoever is the mayor, it will receive a veto-proof approval vote.
They are already working with numerous individuals to help draft legislation. They have three other cities -- Washington D.C., Seattle, WA, and Portland, OR – as well as the state of California, as models for the successful passage of legislation phasing out gas-powered leaf blowers.
Gas-powered leaf blowers use two-stroke engines which, unlike cleaner car engines, burn an oil-gas mixture that generates high levels of ozone-forming chemicals. These engines also disperse fine particulate matter (“PM2.5”). These chemicals and PM2.5s are inhaled by equipment operators and passers-by. Edmunds.com, a car-review website, completed in 2011 an authoritative, independent laboratory study that compared emissions from a 2012 Ford Raptor pickup truck and a 2012 Fiat 500 against those of, among other things, a two-stroke gas-powered leaf blower. The leaf blower generated more than 93 times the output of non-methane hydrocarbons and more than 33 times the output of carbon monoxide as the Fiat.
In more stark terms, Edmunds.com reported that to equal the hydrocarbon emissions of about a half-hour of yard work with a two-stroke leaf blower, you'd have to drive a Ford Raptor pickup truck for 3,887 miles, or the distance from Northern Texas to Anchorage, Alaska.
The high-velocity air jets from gas-powered leaf blowers (150-280 mph, comparable to the strongest hurricanes) disturb topsoil and disperse spores, fungi, pollen, chemical residues from insecticide, rodenticide, herbicide and fungicide treatments, microbes, other potential allergens, and particles of animal feces into the ambient air, putting workers and passers-by at risk.
The noise pollution created by gas-powered leaf blowers is also highly toxic. According to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), noise from leaf blowers ranges from 102 to 115 decibels (“dBs”) at the ear of the operator. They have declared noise levels above 85 dBs to be harmful. Because dBs are measured on a logarithmic scale, a difference in the order of 17 or more dBs represents a huge change in the amount of noise and in the potential damage to a person’s hearing. According to OSHA, health effects from noise alone can include heart disease as well as hearing loss. A Department of Interior publication, Environmental Health Perspectives released results from a recent study that estimates that more than 100 million Americans are at risk for noise-related health problems, with over 145 million at potential risk of hypertension due to noise, and even more at an increased risk of heart attack.
Cleaner and quieter electric and battery-powered leaf blowers are increasingly available and are being used by some local landscaping companies and homeowners, with effective results and at competitive pricing. The payback period for investment in battery-powered leaf blowers varies depending on the cost of gasoline. At the point that gasoline in California was about $6 per gallon, they estimated that the payback period would be 9 months. Given the current price of gasoline locally, one could reasonably estimate the payback period at about two years.
Quiet Clean Philly intends to develop and support legislation that would phase out the use of gas-powered leaf blowers to provide an adequate number of years for their owners, users, and retailers to amortize their inventory of such equipment and to transition to a 21st-century technology.
What can you do? Visit quietcleanphilly.org to learn more, sign our petition for the city council, and get involved. You can also shop for an electric leafblower after reading Consumer Reports’ article that argues that battery-powered handheld leafblowers are overall much better buys. Finally, if you know of an eco-friendly landscaping company, please let us know so we can publicize their good work!