TRENTON, N.J. — The roar of the leaf blower has become an inescapable part of daily life in communities across America, leading towns and states to ban or restrict blowers that run on gasoline.
But the measures face blowback from the landscaping industry and some property owners who say that the battery-powered blowers favored by the legislation are costlier and not nearly as effective as the gasoline-powered ones.
“If you look at what this machines does, how loud it is, how much it pollutes, it’s not normal to be accepted where we live, where our children play,” said Jessica Stolzberg, a writer and crusader against gas-powered leaf blowers who helped get a ban on the machines enacted in her hometown of Montclair, New Jersey.
Antonio Espinoza, a supervisor with the Gras Lawn landscaping company, uses a gasoline-powered leaf blower Tuesday to clean up around a housing development in Brick, N.J. New Jersey is one of many states either considering or already having banned gasoline-powered leaf blowers on environmental and health grounds, but the landscaping industry says the battery-powered devices favored by environmentalists and some governments are costlier and less effective than the ones they currently use.
Since that ban took effect in October, “Montclair has been a healthier, cleaner, quieter community,” she said.
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But the ban is being challenged in court by landscapers, she added.
Just as the push to move away from burning fossil fuels to power cars and homes is drawing opposition from business groups and numerous device owners, the move by government to force a switch to battery-powered leaf blowers has the industry complaining of increased costs and decreased performance under the new regulations.
Though several local communities have already enacted full or partial bans on gas-powered leaf blowers, New Jersey is considering banning them statewide. A state Senate committee on Thursday advanced a bill that would ban such blowers most of the year, but would allow ones using four-stroke combustion engines to be used during peak cleanup periods in spring and fall. (Dirtier two-stroke models would be phased out after two years.)