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Help Is On the Way In the War Against Noisy Leaf Blowers
HughPickens.com writes: Perry Stein writes in the Washington Post that the fight against noisy leaf blowers is gaining momentum, in part, because residents are framing it as a public health issue. Two-stroke engine leaf blowers mix fuel with oil and don't undergo a complete combustion, emitting a number of toxins, like carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide, which their operators inevitably inhale. Municipalities throughout the country have moved to ban them. "You find two-stroke engines in poorer countries because they're cheap," says James Fallows citing a 2004 National Institutes of Health study showing that two-stroke engines on two- and three-wheeled vehicles in Delhi, India, account for a significant amount of air pollution. "You don't find them in richer countries because they're so dirty and polluting." In Washington DC leaf blowers can't exceed 70 decibels as measured from 50 feet away. (A normal conversation is typically about 60 decibels.) Haskell Small, a composer and concert pianist who is helping to lead the leaf-blower battle in Wesley Heights, describes the sound as "piercing." "When I try to compose or write a letter, there is no way for me to listen to my inner voice, and the leaf blower blanks out all the harmonic combinations."
But help is on the way. A new generation of leaf blowers is more environmentally friendly as the emergence of battery-powered leaf blowers takes us closer to the Holy Grail of equipment that is both (1) powerful and (2) quiet. Fallows supports the notion of a kind of trade-in program, where loud, old leaf blowers are exchanged for the less offensive kind. Ted Rueter, founder of Noise Free America, facilitated one such scheme. In the heat of his front lawn dispute with his neighbor, he offered a solution. "If you agree to use them, I will buy you two new leaf blowers," Rueter told his neighbor. "The offer was accepted and the noise level in his front yard was restored to a peaceful level," says Lawrence Richards. "When it comes to the balancing act of protecting landscaping jobs while reducing noise and emissions, it helps that someone was willing to pay for progress."
But help is on the way. A new generation of leaf blowers is more environmentally friendly as the emergence of battery-powered leaf blowers takes us closer to the Holy Grail of equipment that is both (1) powerful and (2) quiet. Fallows supports the notion of a kind of trade-in program, where loud, old leaf blowers are exchanged for the less offensive kind. Ted Rueter, founder of Noise Free America, facilitated one such scheme. In the heat of his front lawn dispute with his neighbor, he offered a solution. "If you agree to use them, I will buy you two new leaf blowers," Rueter told his neighbor. "The offer was accepted and the noise level in his front yard was restored to a peaceful level," says Lawrence Richards. "When it comes to the balancing act of protecting landscaping jobs while reducing noise and emissions, it helps that someone was willing to pay for progress."
First World Problems.
Leaf-blowers themselves are very much a product of the first world. They're a problem we created because we thought it necessary to move leaves around with air, which probably isn't the most efficient method in the first place.
In any case, the first-world created this problem, so, yes, it's naturally up to the first world to fix it.
They arent inherently loud. In fact, their power greatly improves with what would be a very restrictive exhaust on a four stroke. Cheap leaf blowers are just loud because they are cheap and have tiny crappy mufflers. Two strokes also don't have to be inefficient. In larger applications they can generally have a lot more power density than a four stroke and very similar emissions / fuel economy if used with direct injection. Their main problem is that they blow intake charge out with the exhaust when not at the optimal resonance frequency with their exhaust expansion chamber. If you dont add the fuel until the port is closed, its not a problem.
Well, see, there's this thing called the time value of money. People want to play football on grass instead of a slick mass of rotting leaves. So, blow the leaves off the football pitch and back into the forest from whence they came. I imagine that we could press each of the you hooligans, giving them a rake to drag the leaves back into the forest, but the time required to round them up and quantity of rakes required would each be much more expensive than the forester walking a few passes with the leaf blower and returning the leaves to the forest and the pitch to its playable state. You yanks, with your massive states, I imagine, have similar concerns about hours of raking versus minutes of blowing leaves.
Yes, but after removing the leaves, the lawn fanatic dumps chemicals into it to keep that poor over managed grass alive.
Our yard has a big ten foot round faerie ring of mushrooms in it. I don't fuck with it because it's neat to have a many decades old mycellium in the soil near our house
I had a neighbor that could not stand the sight of a single leaf on his lawn or driveway. He'd patrol his yard three times a day with his leaf blower running until the last leaves fell off his oak trees. All the neighbors hated him because you couldn't complain about the noise, it was legal, etc.. People tried to convince him that a few leaves were not a problem - could not get through to him. We all really wanted to stuff his shirt with leaves, douse him in 2-stroke fuel mix, set him alight and fan the flames with the leaf blower.
He finally fucking died of a heart attack...while blowing leaves. Not a life well spent.
With a rake, he would have been the nice quiet old man next door who liked to exercise by working in his yard, and everybody would have some peace. With a leaf blower, he was the asshole/lunatic that everybody wanted to see dead. There are certain technologies like leaf blowers that seem to throw personality disorders into sharp contrast and are simply obnoxious. Nobody seems to think about noise pollution when designing and marketing (and buying) these things, they just assume everybody won't mind 2-strokes running all damned day. I don't know what the solution is, but it is getting harder and harder to find quiet in the world because of stuff like this.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
Vote for Bernie in 2016!
I live in an Austin, TX condo and hear the Echo backpack leafblowers every Monday. At 10 feet I measured one at 98 db. The operators are all illegals, 18-20 year-old kids from the hills of Michoacan in Mexico. None of them are given ear protectors by the foodchain of subcontractors-of-subcontractors who are used to provide legal cover for the condo associations (including mine) who hire illegals because they are cheap, obedient and unlikely to complain. Most will be half-deaf at 30. But nobody here cares. No American would put up with the working conditions or they would call OSHA.
Don't kid yourself; illegal immigration and leafblowers are connected. This is both a first and third world problem; a first world problem for the students who would have the jobs and be earning $15/hr if the illegals were not here and a problem for the kids from Mexico who get $7.50/hr and who will go deaf. Talk about a conspiracy of silence...
The situation pisses me off for both reasons.