Petition to phase out gas powered leaf blowers

An all 2 stroke engine ban would be 1 step if it were actually about the environment or noise. 

I am not in favor of phasing out gas leaf blowers. I am in favor of using them to forcibly inflate their owners.

Then we hurl them into a volcano -- the blowers, I mean. Is there a volcano in Maplewood? 

the18thletter said:

An all 2 stroke engine ban would be 1 step if it were actually about the environment or noise. 

What do you think is driving the leaf blower ban in Maplewood?

yahooyahoo said:

What do you think is driving the leaf blower ban in Maplewood?

Banning "just" leaf blowers is a way to make the laborers life harder. Those who work from home have found the noise to be an inconvience. 

I favor a transition to all electric lawn equipment - edgers, blowers, mowers.  I would prefer the quiet. I think people will still hire landscapers.  The landscapers may have to hire a few more workers.  Costs may go up.  But for the quiet, it is worth it.  Or people could do it themselves.  Grass cutting and edging probably takes me about 50 hours per year and some of that counts as a workout.

Ego makes an electric backpack blower that’s about $400 including the battery and charger. A friend of mine has one and he says he can do his whole yard on one charge. Granted that’s one yard and a landscaping contractor does several in a day.

They would probably need a couple of backup batteries for each blower. Maybe they could run an inverter to charge them while driving. Or ask to plug in the battery charger at their customer’s house.

So it’s probably an investment of $1500 to $2000 to put three of those blowers on each truck. I don’t know anything about landscaping profit margins but that’s no small potatoes.  The gas powered blowers they already have are sunk costs.  There would be no way to recoup any of that investment. 

It would certainly cut down on noise and local emissions. They’re still kind of noisy but nowhere near as loud as the gas-powered ones. There would probably be some efficiency in not having to make trips to the gas station. Batteries could be charged overnight where the equipment is stored. 

My overall point is that it’s not a minor cost to convert to electric tools. But maybe it’s justified, and perhaps municipalities could offer some kind of incentive to convert. 

It's a bit sad.  The environment is collapsing globally and we can't even give up perfect lawns.  The American obsession with lawns is an environmental catastrophe - fertilizers, pesticides, etc.  Suburbs could be havens for insects and biodiversity that is being lost in farm lands. Instead, we poison everything in sight and have lawns that are biodiversity desserts.

tjohn said:

It's a bit sad.  The environment is collapsing globally and we can't even give up perfect lawns.  The American obsession with lawns is an environmental catastrophe - fertilizers, pesticides, etc.  Suburbs could be havens for insects and biodiversity that is being lost in farm lands. Instead, we poison everything in sight and have lawns that are biodiversity desserts.

I don’t think you’re wrong. I love seeing the bees buzz around the clover in our yard. But somehow the perfectly groomed grass lawn is de rigeur. 

My rule is that if it is has roots and grows and can be mowed, then it is grass.

However, I do not do the no-mow-May because if I let my grass go an entire month in May and early June, I would need a haybine to mow it.

tjohn said:

My rule is that if it is has roots and grows and can be mowed, then it is grass.

However, I do not do the no-mow-May because if I let my grass go an entire month in May and early June, I would need a haybine to mow it.

I believe my "lawn" is more weed than grass but since it's green I'm OK with it. Did the no mow may and even with the bumper it was a lot. 

I don't grow weed.

tjohn said:

I don't grow weed.

That’s what I tell all our neighbors, but they don’t believe me. It’s the block calling the nettle pot.

If I could harvest the weed in my lawn I'd give away my lawnmower. 

I should have said I don't grow "weed".

Landscapers will not need extra workers. They will need battery blowers with a magazine of batteries. The extra batteries is where the cost would lie.

the18thletter said:

yahooyahoo said:

What do you think is driving the leaf blower ban in Maplewood?

Banning "just" leaf blowers is a way to make the laborers life harder. Those who work from home have found the noise to be an inconvience. 

Gas-powered leaf blowers are major polluters and noisemakers, and reasonable substitutes exist. It still took the Township 5+ years to pass an ordinance to fully ban them. Banning all two-stroke engines will eventually happen but it would have taken a lot longer.

yahooyahoo said:

Gas-powered leaf blowers are major polluters and noisemakers, and reasonable substitutes exist. It still took the Township 5+ years to pass an ordinance to fully ban them. Banning all two-stroke engines will eventually happen but it would have taken a lot longer.

The other 2 stroke engines don't impact laborers livelihood but they do pollute and make as much noise as a leafblower in addition to having reasonable substitutes as well. 

Most lawn mowers are four-stroke.  Let's phase them out as well.

After the initial investment landscapers would save a good bit in maintenance costs, fuel, and time spent buying and mixing fuel.  Trucks would be safer on the roads without 6 cans of gas in the trailer, and tax laws would let them write off the cost pretty quickly.  

Formerlyjerseyjack said:

Landscapers will not need extra workers. They will need battery blowers with a magazine of batteries. The extra batteries is where the cost would lie.

My house and many houses in SOMA have outdoor electrical plugs and IF we were to hire a landscaper we would be fine with them plugging in to ours.  So far we have not done so because we don't need or want them every week and, in the fall, we really only want the leaves dealt with twice at most and a lot need to go on our garden beds rather than in the street.  And we also have a compost bin where we put the grass clippings and some of the leaves.  So far we have not found any landscapers willing to do this so we keep on DIY-ing although we would love to outsource this chore.  (And one of these years we probably won't have a choice about that, but perhaps we will have more choices by then.)

DanDietrich said:

After the initial investment landscapers would save a good bit in maintenance costs, fuel, and time spent buying and mixing fuel.  Trucks would be safer on the roads without 6 cans of gas in the trailer, and tax laws would let them write off the cost pretty quickly.  

I had to switch to electric landscaping tools after my accident. They're much safer - just let up off the trigger or loosen the grip on the mower handle and whatever it is instantly stops. I use the EGO brand suite of tools.

- no gas, no oil, no spark plugs, no air filters
- quiet enough to be able to use them very early or late
- all the manufacturers make a suite of tools that all use the same batteries and they're often sold as "tool only" if you don't want to buy another battery and charger. This had been the case with power shop tools for a while now. 

The batteries are indeed expensive but I have been surprised at how long they last before needing a charge.

the18thletter said:

The other 2 stroke engines don't impact laborers livelihood but they do pollute and make as much noise as a leafblower in addition to having reasonable substitutes as well. 

Seems like you are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Incremental progress is better than no progress at all.

GoSlugs said:

the18thletter said:

The other 2 stroke engines don't impact laborers livelihood but they do pollute and make as much noise as a leafblower in addition to having reasonable substitutes as well. 

Seems like you are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.  Incremental progress is better than no progress at all.

Seems like you missed my point. 

I would just like to make *my* point utterly clear: Gas-powered leaf blowers are the right hand of the devil.

Anyone using a gas-powered leaf blower for any reason at any time should be subject to whatever punishment the laws of medieval Kazakhstan can devise. 

None shall be spared.

As opposed to gas powered snow blowers….

BarneyGumble said:

As opposed to gas powered snow blowers….

I would say a snow blower is important for maintaining safety conditions. And there are health risks to shoveling snow that can be mitigated with a snowblower. 

Leaf blowers are for a specific esthetic purpose. 

BarneyGumble said:

As opposed to gas powered snow blowers….

i used my snowblower twice last year.  Probably the same days and times as everyone else in town.  And of course a 4 cycle engine pollutes less than a two cycle engine.  So yes, it's much more important to get rid of gas powered leaf blowers which seem to operate continuously for months on end.

the18thletter said:

Seems like you missed my point. 

Oh, I got it.  I just rejected it.