By Jack Keller, Communications Director

I like to jog in the mornings. It’s a major part of my routine. To hear the birds, smell the tide coming in and see the sun coming up. This winter felt like forever, and I’ve long been awaiting these warm spring mornings to take my jogs to the next level.

But these spring mornings arrived with a plunder—or more like an obnoxiously loud VROOM. Yes, the gas-powered leaf blowers are back. Like a spring bloom, one day you’ll hear your first; the next, they’re inescapable.

This morning, I counted seven lawns with a team of leaf blowers assaulting their respective parcels. That’s a lot for a quick jog around a small town.

They’re so loud, my music is drowned out as I pass them by. They’re so powerful, they create plumes of dirt and pollen which rise like smoke signals. And they’re so stinky that I must hold my breath as I jog by, until I can’t anymore and end up choking down a gulp of gas-flavored air.

The wielders often meander into the street, forcing me to dodge them as I run by. “On your left!” I’ll shout, to no avail—these things operate between 85-125 decibels, enough to permanently damage one’s ears, and more than enough to render shouting futile. They’ll point their smog machines to the left, so I’ll go right. Until they direct their air right. Which is when I duck left—you see where I’m going with this; these cat-and-mouse games always seem to end with me getting blasted.

 So yeah, gas powered leaf blowers are really annoying. But annoying only begins to scratch the surface: the real issue is how completely unnecessary and damaging they’ve become.

Most mornings, I’ll see an entire crew blowing around what amounts to a few stray blades of grass. A job that could be done with a broom, or by hand—or left alone entirely—instead becomes gas-guzzling warfare.

Before you shrug off my suburban angst as petty, consider this: running a gas-powered leaf blower for 30 minutes emits the same amount of hydrocarbon emissions released by a Ford F150 driving from Maine to California. Amid a climate crisis where sharply reducing emissions is everyone’s imperative, how is it that a few scattered twigs come at the cost of a cross-country road trip?

This is all taking place in Connecticut, mind you, home to some of the most strident emissions standards when it comes to the cars they allow on the road. Yet when it comes to gas-powered leaf blowers—one of the most absurdly polluting machines per minute of use—the state turns a blind eye.

Also consider the noise factor. If someone like me has a gripe with how noisy they are, imagine the havoc the wreak on birds. These machines blast sound in the same frequency range (85-125 decibels) birds use to communicate. When that sound gets drowned out, it’s not just annoying for the bird lovers, but for the birds, too. Actually, it’s life-altering for birds.

The noise produced by gas powered leaf blowers inhibits birds’ abilities to attract mates, defend territory and warn others of predators. A study conducted by Behavioral Ecology highlighted that birds exposed to continuous noise showed diminished responses to predatorial cues in nesting birds—their natural defense mechanisms were compromised due to noise pollution. A study published by Nature also found that noise pollution leads to reduced reproductive success in birds.

Birds’ biological responses are under siege from gas-powered leaf blowers. Leaf blowers that are used for no good reason.

Attempts to ban or even criticize gas-powered leaf blowers are often met with comical levels of blowback (no pun intended). In New Jersey, where multiple municipalities have enacted bans on gas-powered blowers, such pushback was less than prudent.

“New Jersey is bombarded with leaves and stuff to clean up,” Rich Goldstein, president of the New Jersey Landscape Contractors Association (who represents 550 companies in the state) told AP in 2024.

Connecticut is very similar, ecologically, to New Jersey and I wouldn’t classify the aimless blowing I see every morning as combating “bombardment.” This is not trench warfare—its lawn maintenance. Gas-powered blowers are familiar, but that doesn’t justify their continued use or the industry’s glaring ignorance towards alternatives.

Today, more than 200 towns and cities across the country have banned the use of gas-powered leaf blowers. It’s unclear how many have been buried in leaves at this point. It is clear; however, how beneficial such bans have been for their communities.

Maplewood, New Jersey successfully banned gas-powered blowers in 2023. The mayor at the time, Nancy Adams, said “our community is better for it, our quality of life is better.”

Cleaner air, more abundant wildlife populations and quieter skies—who would’ve thought that goes hand in hand with a better quality of life?