[Summit] re health and yardcare

[Martha Fraenkel]

*from the NY Times 10 25 21*

Onto these perfect October afternoons, when light gleams on the red 
dogwood berries and the blue arrowwood berries and the purple 
beautyberries; on the last of the many-colored zinnias and the last of 
the yellow marigolds and the last of the white snakeroot flowers; on the 
shining hair of babies in strollers and the shining ponytails of young 
mothers and the tender, shining heads of old men walking dogs — into the 
midst of all this beauty, the kind of beauty that makes despair seem 
like only a figment of the midnight imagination, the monsters arrive.

They come in a deafening, surging swarm, blasting from lawn to lawn and 
filling the air with the stench of gasoline and death. I would call them 
mechanical locusts, descending upon every patch of gold in the 
neighborhood the way the grasshoppers of old would arrive, in numbers so 
great they darkened the sky, to lay bare a cornfield in minutes. But 
that comparison is unfair to locusts.

Grasshoppers belong here. Gasoline-powered leaf blowers are invaders, 
the most maddening of all the maddening, environment-destroying tools of 
the American lawn-care industry.

Nearly everything about how Americans “care” for their lawns is deadly. 
Pesticides prevent wildflower seeds from germinating and poison the 
insects that feed songbirds and other wildlife. Lawn mower blades, set 
too low, chop into bits the snakes and turtles and baby rabbits that 
can’t get away in time. Mulch, piled too deep, smothers ground-nesting 
bees, and often the very plants that mulch is supposed to protect, as well.

But the gasoline-powered leaf blower exists in a category of 
environmental hell all its own, spewing pollutants — carbon monoxide, 
smog-forming nitrous oxides, carcinogenic hydrocarbons 
<https://sustainability.wustl.edu/rethinking-lawn-equipment-2/> — into 
the atmosphere at a literally breathtaking rate.

This particular environmental catastrophe is not news. A 2011 study by 
Edmunds found that a two-stroke gasoline-powered leaf blower spewed out 
more pollution than a 6,200-pound Ford F-150 SVT Raptor pickup truck. 
Jason Kavanagh, the engineering editor at Edmunds at the time, noted 
that “hydrocarbon emissions from a half-hour of yard work with the 
two-stroke leaf blower are about the same as a 3,900-mile drive from 
Texas to Alaska in a Raptor.”

The two-stroke engine found in most consumer gas-powered leaf blowers is 
an outmoded technology. Unlike larger, heavier engines, a two-stroke 
engine combines oil and gas in a single chamber, which gives the machine 
more power while remaining light enough to carry. That design also means 
that it is very loud, and that as much as a third of the fuel is spewed 
into the air as unburned aerosol.

How loud? “Some produce more than 100 decibels of low-frequency, 
wall-penetrating sound — or as much noise as a plane taking off — at 
levels that can cause tinnitus and hearing loss with long exposure.”

How much fuel? Gasoline-powered lawn-care machines — mowers, trimmers, 
leaf blowers, etc. — consume nearly 2.2 billion gallons of gas each 
year, about 10 percent of all the mobile hydrocarbon emissions in this 
country. In his Oct. 2 newsletter, the writer James Fallows summarized: 
“Using a two-stroke engine is like heating your house with an open pit 
fire in the living room — and chopping down your trees to keep it going, 
and trying to whoosh away the fetid black smoke before your children are 
poisoned by it.”

As Mr. Fallows’s last point suggests, what’s bad for the environment is 
bad for humans, too — most menacingly, of course, for the employees of 
landscape services, who are exposed to these dangers all day long.

The risks come not only from the noise and the chemical emissions that 
two-stroke engines produce, but also from the dust they stir up. “That 
dust can contain pollen, mold, animal feces, heavy metals and chemicals 
from herbicides and pesticides,” notes Sara Peach of Yale Climate 
Connections.

All this adds up to increased risk of lung cancer, asthma, 
cardiovascular disease, premature birth and other life-threatening 
conditions.

This month, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed a new law making his 
the first state with plans to ban gas-powered lawn equipment along with 
other machines, like generators and pressure washers, that use 
gasoline-powered engines.

The passenger vehicles on California’s roads and highways collectively 
produce less pollution than off-road machinery does. Think about that 
for a minute: Lawn-care equipment creates more pollution in California 
than cars do 
<https://www.kqed.org/news/11310630/more-pollution-than-cars-gas-powered-gardening-equipment-poses-the-next-air-quality-threat>.

More than 100 cities across the country have already passed regulations 
to ban or restrict gas-powered leaf blowers. For people committed to 
their manicured lawns, the good news is that powerful electric and 
battery-operated leaf blowers now exist, and they are quieter and 
greener and healthier than gasoline-powered blowers. Their market share 
is also growing rapidly; electric equipment now represents roughly 44 
percent of lawn-care machinery sales.

But the trouble with leaf blowers isn’t only their pollution-spewing 
health consequences. It’s also the damage they do to biodiversity. 
Fallen leaves provide protection for overwintering insects and the egg 
sacs of others. Leaf blowers, whether electric or gasoline-powered, 
dislodge the leaf litter that is so essential to insect life — the 
insect life that in turn is so essential to birds and other wildlife.

The ideal fertilizer and mulch can’t be found in your local garden 
center. They are available at no cost in the form of a tree’s own 
leaves. The best thing to do with fallen leaves is to mulch them with a 
lawn mower if your lawn consists of entirely of unvariegated turf grass 
(which it should not, given that turf grass requires immense amounts of 
water and poison to maintain). Our yard is a mixture of grasses and 
clovers and wildflowers, so we can safely let our leaves lie. If a high 
wind carries them away, it’s hard not to wail, “Wait! I was saving those!”

And the leaves that fall across every inch of this wild half acre of 
suburbia are so much prettier than any unnaturally green lawn beaten 
into submission by stench-spewing machinery. All those golden sugar 
maple leaves hold onto the light, and for weeks it looks as though our 
whole yard is on fire, even in the rain. Who could be troubled by a 
blanket made of light? A blanket keeping all the little creatures safe 
from the cold?
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