[Summit] re health and yardcare

Mon Oct 25 16:23:42 UTC 2021

Yes, yes, ten thousand times yes!!!

California has just passed a law that will prohibit the use of
gasoline-powered leaf blowers in the near future.  At last!

Bob M.

On Mon, Oct 25, 2021 at 11:18 AM Martha Fraenkel <mfraenkel at gmail.com>
wrote:

> *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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