The fight against the shrill noise and pollution of leaf blowing machines

Noise pollution from petrol driven Leaf Blowers affects everyone: lawn crews, neighbours, school children and office workers. It causes stress and hypertension for anyone near to them, and is also a serious risk for permanent Hearing Loss for the crews.  
Gas leaf blowers are hugely polluting, and of the worst sort of air pollution, as they run on 2 cycle motors. They pollute with poisonous, carcinogenic emissions of incompletely burned hydrocarbon particulate matter, and smog forming exhaust.  
Toxic waste from 2 cycle gas engine degreasers, solvents and fuel stabilizers end up in our breathable air, or landfills, polluting our soil and water. The machines also contribute egregiously to Climate Change, as they are greatly overused and so inefficient.  
Leaf Blowers are employed to 'sanitize our gardens', very artificially. Leaf litter is an Essential ingredient and a natural component of any garden. Leaves provide habitat for bugs, worms .... and that in turn provides food for birds. Leaf litter protects ground covers from frost and holds in soil moisture, reducing evaporation. Mulching leaves into the lawn by mowing over them [making them into tiny fragments which decay] returns the rich ingredients and nutrients in the leaves back into the grass. This practice is environmentally, a very green approach/solution, compared to the alternative. 
Blowing leaves into piles Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn and then removing them in a van, throws away this resource and wastes the material, just generating yet another maintenance bill for garden committees, and more pollution.  
Electric leaf blowers would be an immense improvement on petrol driven ones, where suitable and when needed. Greatly curtailed months when any leaf blowers are used would be even wiser and more welcome.  
Rakes, brooms, some small tarps and a new respect for the common leaf, and its obvious but quiet virtues, would be a real advance on present garden maintenance vision and goals.  
A garden is indeed 'well-maintained' without a weekly Noise Invasion, that seeks to appear busy, concerned and hard working. Instead, such visits could easily register as misguided, unwanted and horribly disruptive with just a little re-imagining and a thoughtful reconsideration of its negative characteristics and outcomes.

September 7, 2018 | Dr. C. W. London