6 ms·

Gas-powered leaf blowers: the most polluting machinery still in legal use

47 points by MilnerRoute 5y ago

ryantgtg 5y ago
These were banned in Santa Barbara (where I grew up) a few decades ago. It was strange to move outta SB and encounter them again.
docgonzo 5y ago
https://localwiki.org/davis/Banning_leaf-blowers https://localwiki.org/davis/Banning_leaf-blowers finally a political party I can get behind
GaryTang 5y ago
Electric leaf blowers utilize non-renewable rare earth metals, should we outlaw those too?
- guilhas 5y ago
  Exactly, gas-powered anything should be more than an acceptable solution during the transition from petrol/diesel/coal to electric
  - lttlrck 5y ago
    In this case, gas == petrol, not natural gas.
    - guilhas 5y ago
      Ops sorry, I meant natural gas
- space_rock 5y ago
  Companies are already transitioning to cobalt free batteries https://www.electrive.com/2021/07/23/svolt-launches-production-of-cobalt-free-battery-cells/ https://www.electrive.com/2021/07/23/svolt-launches-producti...
- rascul 5y ago
  Are you referring to batteries? Edit: I'm not authoritative, but I can't think off the top of my head of any rare earth metals that an electric leaf blower uses except perhaps in the batteries. But also, there are plug in electric leaf blowers.
  - nkurz 5y ago
    I presume the OP was referring to magnets. Rare earths are used to make stronger permanent magnets, which are used to make more efficient electric motors (for both plug-in and battery tools). This looks to be an intro article: https://qz.com/1999894/why-rare-earth-magnets-are-vital-to-the-global-climate-economy/ https://qz.com/1999894/why-rare-earth-magnets-are-vital-to-t....
    - rascul 5y ago
      Interesting. I wasn't aware that there existed magnets with rare earth metals. Thank you for the information.
- belorn 5y ago
  If Electric leaf blowers was the biggest consumer of rare earth metals for every hour of usage, then we would likely have an issue with those. Leaf blowers could do what boat motors have been mostly forced to do and switch over to four-stroke motors. Motors have emission standards to follow. Battery manufacturers has environment laws to follow and if they produce products that fall below the minimum standard then they have to improve their product or be banned from selling their products.
- dTal 5y ago
  Non-renewable isn't ideal, but it's not half as big of a problem as spewing pollution everywhere - which is the problem under discussion.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cdot2 5y ago
The headline is sort of misleading. The article is about two stroke engines. Not specifically leaf blowers.
- JudasGoat 5y ago
  The picture showed landscapers using 4 stroke Stihl blowers. Much quieter as well as less air polution.
- nichos 5y ago
  It's also misleading in that "they're the most." Something has to be #1
Koshkin 5y ago
My biggest issue is with the noise pollution. These things should be banned, period.
- zbuf 5y ago
  The biggest insult seems to be just how inefficient they are to do... anything. Being in a nice park/wherever, greeted by someone revving away intermittently trying to push around a couple of leaves. Can someone tell me what I'm missing when I think this tool is utterly inappropriate for the job? At very least it could suck; but really what's wrong with a rake? Genuinely asking here.
  - cafard 5y ago
    We do not have a leaf blower at all, but have considered getting one. My wife wishes to get the fallen leaves out of gardens every fall, and it is hard to do this without bringing a great deal of mulch along. We suspect that a leaf blower would work better. It seems unlikely to me that we will get one, after four or five falls of "we really ought to get a leaf blower". The other thing is that leaf blowers compete not just against rakes but against brooms. I hear them all summer when yard crews are cleaning up a sidewalk after mowing. I think there is some savings in time there--not much for a homeowner, but enough to count for a yard crew doing many lawns in a day.
- tmm84 5y ago
  I guess the reason more people put up with the noise is because everyone loves a well cared for lawn without clippings laying around. Another thing I hate is that on some streets they push things like nails and glass into the roadway causing punctures.
sgarland 5y ago
> If batteries can power a multi-ton F-150 truck, it is fatuous for landscapers to say that they aren’t strong enough for a dozen-pound leaf blower. Sure, if the batteries are large enough. I tried Lowe's Kobalt 80V leaf blower, and only on the max speed setting did it have enough power to pull leaves out of the grass. Unfortunately, on that setting the battery would last ~10-15 minutes, which isn't enough time for the front and back yard. Sure, I could get two batteries, but now costs are rapidly rising, and I'm also draining the battery's useful life at an increased rate. I want cordless electric gardening tools to be great, I really do. I don't enjoy having to deal with clogged jets in my weed eater's carburetor (Husqvarna 4-stroke, because what the article does get correct is that 2-strokes are obnoxiously loud), nor do I enjoy having to drive out of my way to get ethanol-free gas for them. However, I'll take that over mediocre performance and battery life.
- bradknowles 5y ago
  Ego, Greenworks, and Ryobi also have backpack model battery powered leaf blowers. You might want to check out one of those. Yes, you’ll need to swap out batteries more often than you would have to refuel your gas-powered leaf blower, but as a homeowner or home renter, that should be a lot easier for you than the “mow and blow” operations that have nothing more than a pickup truck and a trailer.
- wingineer 5y ago
  What about fuel injected 4-strokes? (Maybe these don’t exist in the leaf blower market yet).
  - londons_explore 5y ago
    Small four stroke engines never really got developed, mostly because devices that need tiny engines rarely care about fuel efficiency, and usually care far more about engine weight and cost.
  - foxyv 5y ago
    Don't know about fuel injection, but there are definitely 4 stroke blowers. Personally I prefer 4 stroke for small engines. 2-stroke exhaust gives me headaches. https://www.amazon.com/Makita-BHX2500CA-4-Stroke-Engine-Blower/dp/B001ASHLSU/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=4+stroke+leaf+blower&qid=1633533118&sr=8-3 https://www.amazon.com/Makita-BHX2500CA-4-Stroke-Engine-Blow...
rektide 5y ago
DC is beginning a year round gas blower ban in 2022 and MD is starting a January-mid-october ban. Could not be more excited. Definitely not an easy conversion, and a lot of folks are going to have to adapt to battery power. Splitting up the work or having extra swappable packs will be a must. Sadly i predict for a bit there'll be work trucks with a generator in the back, charging batteries. Over time i hope big & mild hybrids with decent sized inverters help a lot.
wingineer 5y ago
Seems like the most impactful solution would be an EPA or CARB ban on sales of new two-stroke lawn devices. Although this article suggests a switch to battery powered devices, four-stroke replacements more easily fit the niche than something which degrades in charge and takes a while to recharge at that.
- mushbino 5y ago
  You just swap the battery out like other power tools.
valley-green 5y ago
Actually it's cars. Cars can pollute much worse than a leaf blower, because of the amount of fuel uncombusted. Leafblowers have a smaller engine and consume less fuel, polluting less than a poorly maintained car with malfunctioning emissions components.
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
Tsk. Get clean by give them the cream of the petrochemical chain. [1] https://www.aspenfuels.com/products/alla/aspen-2/ https://www.aspenfuels.com/products/alla/aspen-2/ So sustainable, without the pain of feeling bad, it's almost unbearable, just mad!
- dTal 5y ago
  Why are you calling that sustainable? It's a fossil fuel.
  - LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
    Maybe I should have marked it as satire. OTOH, produced out of carbon sucked out of the atmosphere by whichever (nuclear) means could make it almost carbon neutral!1!!
londons_explore 5y ago
A single number representative of "total harm to human health" needs to be developed to evaluate things like this. Then we could say "people in Chicago have X harm from cars, X harm from planes, and X harm from leaf blowers". The harm number could be based on estimates from experts on the life-years lost by inhaling each chemical in the exhaust and the quantities of each chemical emitted and breathed in. It would then be up to policymakers to either tax or ban things causing lots of harm. Without boiling it down to a single number, claims like "more ozone comes from a leafblower than a car" are really hard to know the impact of.
- dTal 5y ago
  You need quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Simple life-years don't capture the harm from chronic health effects - like hearing loss or brain damage, to pick two that gas-powered leaf-blowers cause.

47 points by MilnerRoute 5y ago

These were banned in Santa Barbara (where I grew up) a few decades ago. It was strange to move outta SB and encounter them again.

docgonzo 5y ago

https://localwiki.org/davis/Banning_leaf-blowers https://localwiki.org/davis/Banning_leaf-blowers finally a political party I can get behind

GaryTang 5y ago

Electric leaf blowers utilize non-renewable rare earth metals, should we outlaw those too?

guilhas 5y ago
Exactly, gas-powered anything should be more than an acceptable solution during the transition from petrol/diesel/coal to electric
- lttlrck 5y ago
  In this case, gas == petrol, not natural gas.
  - guilhas 5y ago
    Ops sorry, I meant natural gas
space_rock 5y ago
Companies are already transitioning to cobalt free batteries https://www.electrive.com/2021/07/23/svolt-launches-production-of-cobalt-free-battery-cells/ https://www.electrive.com/2021/07/23/svolt-launches-producti...
rascul 5y ago
Are you referring to batteries? Edit: I'm not authoritative, but I can't think off the top of my head of any rare earth metals that an electric leaf blower uses except perhaps in the batteries. But also, there are plug in electric leaf blowers.
- nkurz 5y ago
  I presume the OP was referring to magnets. Rare earths are used to make stronger permanent magnets, which are used to make more efficient electric motors (for both plug-in and battery tools). This looks to be an intro article: https://qz.com/1999894/why-rare-earth-magnets-are-vital-to-the-global-climate-economy/ https://qz.com/1999894/why-rare-earth-magnets-are-vital-to-t....
  - rascul 5y ago
    Interesting. I wasn't aware that there existed magnets with rare earth metals. Thank you for the information.
belorn 5y ago
If Electric leaf blowers was the biggest consumer of rare earth metals for every hour of usage, then we would likely have an issue with those. Leaf blowers could do what boat motors have been mostly forced to do and switch over to four-stroke motors. Motors have emission standards to follow. Battery manufacturers has environment laws to follow and if they produce products that fall below the minimum standard then they have to improve their product or be banned from selling their products.
dTal 5y ago
Non-renewable isn't ideal, but it's not half as big of a problem as spewing pollution everywhere - which is the problem under discussion.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cdot2 5y ago

The headline is sort of misleading. The article is about two stroke engines. Not specifically leaf blowers.

JudasGoat 5y ago
The picture showed landscapers using 4 stroke Stihl blowers. Much quieter as well as less air polution.
nichos 5y ago
It's also misleading in that "they're the most." Something has to be #1

Koshkin 5y ago

My biggest issue is with the noise pollution. These things should be banned, period.

zbuf 5y ago
The biggest insult seems to be just how inefficient they are to do... anything. Being in a nice park/wherever, greeted by someone revving away intermittently trying to push around a couple of leaves. Can someone tell me what I'm missing when I think this tool is utterly inappropriate for the job? At very least it could suck; but really what's wrong with a rake? Genuinely asking here.
- cafard 5y ago
  We do not have a leaf blower at all, but have considered getting one. My wife wishes to get the fallen leaves out of gardens every fall, and it is hard to do this without bringing a great deal of mulch along. We suspect that a leaf blower would work better. It seems unlikely to me that we will get one, after four or five falls of "we really ought to get a leaf blower". The other thing is that leaf blowers compete not just against rakes but against brooms. I hear them all summer when yard crews are cleaning up a sidewalk after mowing. I think there is some savings in time there--not much for a homeowner, but enough to count for a yard crew doing many lawns in a day.
tmm84 5y ago
I guess the reason more people put up with the noise is because everyone loves a well cared for lawn without clippings laying around. Another thing I hate is that on some streets they push things like nails and glass into the roadway causing punctures.

sgarland 5y ago

> If batteries can power a multi-ton F-150 truck, it is fatuous for landscapers to say that they aren’t strong enough for a dozen-pound leaf blower. Sure, if the batteries are large enough. I tried Lowe's Kobalt 80V leaf blower, and only on the max speed setting did it have enough power to pull leaves out of the grass. Unfortunately, on that setting the battery would last ~10-15 minutes, which isn't enough time for the front and back yard. Sure, I could get two batteries, but now costs are rapidly rising, and I'm also draining the battery's useful life at an increased rate. I want cordless electric gardening tools to be great, I really do. I don't enjoy having to deal with clogged jets in my weed eater's carburetor (Husqvarna 4-stroke, because what the article does get correct is that 2-strokes are obnoxiously loud), nor do I enjoy having to drive out of my way to get ethanol-free gas for them. However, I'll take that over mediocre performance and battery life.

bradknowles 5y ago
Ego, Greenworks, and Ryobi also have backpack model battery powered leaf blowers. You might want to check out one of those. Yes, you’ll need to swap out batteries more often than you would have to refuel your gas-powered leaf blower, but as a homeowner or home renter, that should be a lot easier for you than the “mow and blow” operations that have nothing more than a pickup truck and a trailer.
wingineer 5y ago
What about fuel injected 4-strokes? (Maybe these don’t exist in the leaf blower market yet).
- londons_explore 5y ago
  Small four stroke engines never really got developed, mostly because devices that need tiny engines rarely care about fuel efficiency, and usually care far more about engine weight and cost.
- foxyv 5y ago
  Don't know about fuel injection, but there are definitely 4 stroke blowers. Personally I prefer 4 stroke for small engines. 2-stroke exhaust gives me headaches. https://www.amazon.com/Makita-BHX2500CA-4-Stroke-Engine-Blower/dp/B001ASHLSU/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=4+stroke+leaf+blower&qid=1633533118&sr=8-3 https://www.amazon.com/Makita-BHX2500CA-4-Stroke-Engine-Blow...

rektide 5y ago

DC is beginning a year round gas blower ban in 2022 and MD is starting a January-mid-october ban. Could not be more excited. Definitely not an easy conversion, and a lot of folks are going to have to adapt to battery power. Splitting up the work or having extra swappable packs will be a must. Sadly i predict for a bit there'll be work trucks with a generator in the back, charging batteries. Over time i hope big & mild hybrids with decent sized inverters help a lot.

wingineer 5y ago

Seems like the most impactful solution would be an EPA or CARB ban on sales of new two-stroke lawn devices. Although this article suggests a switch to battery powered devices, four-stroke replacements more easily fit the niche than something which degrades in charge and takes a while to recharge at that.

mushbino 5y ago
You just swap the battery out like other power tools.

valley-green 5y ago

Actually it's cars. Cars can pollute much worse than a leaf blower, because of the amount of fuel uncombusted. Leafblowers have a smaller engine and consume less fuel, polluting less than a poorly maintained car with malfunctioning emissions components.

LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago

Tsk. Get clean by give them the cream of the petrochemical chain. [1] https://www.aspenfuels.com/products/alla/aspen-2/ https://www.aspenfuels.com/products/alla/aspen-2/ So sustainable, without the pain of feeling bad, it's almost unbearable, just mad!

dTal 5y ago
Why are you calling that sustainable? It's a fossil fuel.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  Maybe I should have marked it as satire. OTOH, produced out of carbon sucked out of the atmosphere by whichever (nuclear) means could make it almost carbon neutral!1!!

londons_explore 5y ago

A single number representative of "total harm to human health" needs to be developed to evaluate things like this. Then we could say "people in Chicago have X harm from cars, X harm from planes, and X harm from leaf blowers". The harm number could be based on estimates from experts on the life-years lost by inhaling each chemical in the exhaust and the quantities of each chemical emitted and breathed in. It would then be up to policymakers to either tax or ban things causing lots of harm. Without boiling it down to a single number, claims like "more ozone comes from a leafblower than a car" are really hard to know the impact of.

dTal 5y ago
You need quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Simple life-years don't capture the harm from chronic health effects - like hearing loss or brain damage, to pick two that gas-powered leaf-blowers cause.