If the annoying sound of a leaf blower isn’t enough to put you off this gardening tool, maybe the choking pollution is. In one year, the average blower used by a professional gardener emits as much smog-forming pollution as 80 new cars, each driven 12,500 miles.
That startling figure comes from California’s South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD), which is offering a leaf blower exchange program to get 1,500 old high-polluting backpack leaf blowers off of Southern California’s streets.
In various cities in July, gardeners and landscapers can get a new, low-polluting blower manufactured by Stihl and valued at $470 for $200. Exchanging 1,500 older blow
ers will reduce nearly 14 tons of smog-forming pollution a year.
AQMD, the air pollution agency for these parts, already has tackled lawn mowers and exchanged more than 16,000 gas-powered motors for zero-emitting electric models since 2003.
Every little bit helps in car-crazy southern California. It is less smoggy than a few decades ago, I am told, but still it’s hard to see the San Gabriel Mountains today from downtown Los Angeles, just 10 miles apart.
