A yard you can enjoy. A neighborhood that works. A town that listens.
"They're banning all leaf blowers."
No. The rule targets gas-powered blowers. Electric — corded or battery — keeps working exactly the way it does today. Most ordinances also phase commercial use first, residential later.
"Battery blowers can't do the job."
Commercial crews running multi-battery systems are already clearing properties in every Westchester town that's banned gas. For a one-acre wooded lot at peak fall? Today's prosumer batteries struggle, and we won't pretend otherwise. For 90% of weekly residential maintenance? They're already fine — and the gap closes every year.
"Lithium batteries are a fire hazard — look at the e-bike fires."
The e-bike fires in the news are almost all aftermarket, off-brand cells from unregulated supply chains. Commercial battery packs from established manufacturers — EGO, Stihl, Husqvarna, Greenworks — are UL-certified, engineered for thermal management, and have a clean track record in the field. Charged and stored like any other power-tool battery, they're safe.
"This will crush small landscapers."
The transition is real money — that part is true. That's why a serious ordinance includes a multi-year phase-in, equipment buy-backs, and tax-credit pathways. If your town's version doesn't, ask for it. Don't accept the switch flipped overnight.
"I just bought a $600 gas blower."
A fair point that deserves an answer, not a shrug. Trade-in and rebate programs exist for exactly this — and where they don't, residents should demand them as part of the deal.
"The grid can't handle it. Batteries are an environmental disaster."
Lifecycle studies (CARB, Argonne National Lab) find battery equipment beats two-stroke gas decisively, even after counting mining, manufacturing, and disposal. Yard-tool grid load is a rounding error next to a single EV. The "dirty grid" math has been wrong for a decade and gets wronger every year.
"They'll just charge batteries off diesel generators on their trucks — same pollution."
On-route generator charging happens, but it's the exception, not the rule. The standard model is overnight depot charging — packs plugged into the grid, much of which is now low-carbon. And even when crews use a generator for an on-site top-off, modern diesels have emissions controls; two-stroke engines have none. The math still favors the swap by a wide margin.
"This is overreach. It's my property."
Of course it's your property — and that instinct, leave me alone on my own land, is one we share completely. But the exhaust drifting through the neighbor's kitchen window isn't on your property anymore. It's on theirs. Property rights cut both ways — and that's exactly why every town already regulates fireworks, idling trucks, barking dogs, and burning leaves. Not to take rights away. To protect everyone's.
Before anything else, this is a workers' rights issue.
An eight-hour shift on a gas blower means breathing two-stroke exhaust at face level — benzene, formaldehyde, fine particulate, none of it scrubbed, because two-stroke engines have no catalytic converter. Sound levels at the operator's ear routinely exceed OSHA's permissible exposure limit: manufacturer-published specs put commercial backpack gas blowers at 95–106 dB(A) at the operator (Husqvarna 580BTS / Stihl BR 800) — well above NIOSH's 85 dB(A) recommended exposure limit.
We're not anti-landscaper. We're pro-landscaper. The same job can be done with equipment that doesn't trade the operator's lungs and hearing for a faster cleanup.
If we share the goal — a healthier, more livable community — here's what the strong version of an ordinance contains:
If your town's proposal includes those, the decision-makers have done their homework. If it doesn't, the conversation worth having isn't whether to act — it's how to do it well, for everyone.
This page exists because we read the angry comments. If you've got an objection we haven't answered, tell us. Send us a note. We'll read it.