Leaf Blower vs. Deaths

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Is it possible fore the increased use of leaf blowers to be causing asthma sufferers to die? Could it be that this same issue is causing my serious medical issues?

cleanair.trilithon.com/pages.blowers/respiratory.html

airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=particle_health.index

At times my heath gets so bad that I feel I’d love to just doe to get of the pain caused from an increased pressure on my inner ear. It’s very painful. But I’m not in any danger of death unless my head spontaneously explodes. :rolleyes: I’m just wondering if if leaf blowers should be outlawed if what I’ve read is true. I also wonder if the increased burden on the healthcare industry would improve as a result. If a direct correlation can be made, shouldn’t the use of leaf blowers be outlawed then?

What say you?
 
I agree for mostly the same reasons. Too much flying dust! Too much noise! I’m losing my hearing already, I sure don’t need more noise.

And they make a mess. Around here, the fellow blows the leaves into the street, making a mess of the gutters and road.

And, I’d rather pay the guy a little bit more to see him use his own energy to sweep, carefully, by hand. Maybe it would take two guys, and someone else would have a job.

Leaf Blowers of Death–sounds like a good movie title!
 
Same problem with lawn vacuums and lawn mower baggers…lots of dust. Most of the problem is that, as mostly city dwellers, we do not build up (and maintain) a tolerance to dust, like farmers have to endure.

Please buy some cheap masks to wear, and check with your doc for allergy/dust/pollen relief meds. Keep your doors and windows closed (open in the evening when outside activity dies dow). Stay in a/c as much as you can.

I have friends and relatives with extreme COPD. There are some possibilities for control of your environment, but you have to keep looking for what works for you.

Bless you!
 
I think leaf blowers affects are a small-localized event. I am and asthmatic and so is my son. We live on 5 acres with hundreds of trees. We wear protective masks and have our inhalers with us. Without the blowers we’d be raking for weeks, which in itself can bring on asthma by constantly stirring the ground. Even in summer my riding mower causes more disturbance than a leaf blower. The other alternative, is a push a broom, which still stirs up the ground. Usually my need for the blower comes after I’ve run my lawn mower and trimmer (weed whacker if you like)

A couple of things to consider:
Why make a law that affects a small group of people? Remember I’m in that group. It is my responsibility to be prepared and carry my inhaler.

That first statistic is miss-leading… 900,000 ton of dust every dry day of the year? How is that concentration dispersed? How many days were sampled? Where did the sampling take place, in a big city, the Mohave Desert, or up in the Sierra Mountains?
  • Spring doesn’t break out over the US in one day but over the course of three months across the us.
  • How do they correlate the number of leaf blowers to dust increase? Did they track everyone each time they used them, what were there sampling methods?
Did they exclude other factor such as changes in weather, fire events like forest fires and how do you exclude smog that is produced in big cites such as LA, New York and Chicago which drift across the country every day?

“Noise bazooka”, really? The larger particulates they describe also tend fall back to the ground quicker than pollen or dust which can be stirred up just walking through areas with it.

Even in my neighbor hood I’ve yet to see more dust created with a “noise bazooka” than passing garbage truck produces or a car does on a busy city street or country road.

If the wind blows up in your neighborhood it has a lot more of and effect than a leaf blower.

I run mine once every 7-10 days during the spring and summer and about once week in the fall after that it is put until spring.

I am not trying to be flippant but the CDC’s conclusion has a lot of holes in it. Additionally I am tired of so much regulation in our lives. My use of a blower limits my exposure by cutting down the time I am blowing particulates around from weeks to a couple a days in a given month for only part of the year.

Respectfully
KDF
 
NOISE!!!

A broom is quiet. I think that is main reason for the bans in some urban and suburban areas, like Los Angeles.
 
Peggy_in_Burien said:
I agree for mostly the same reasons. Too much flying dust! Too much noise! I’m losing my hearing already, I sure don’t need more noise.

And they make a mess. Around here, the fellow blows the leaves into the street, making a mess of the gutters and road.

And, I’d rather pay the guy a little bit more to see him use his own energy to sweep, carefully, by hand. Maybe it would take two guys, and someone else would have a job.

Leaf Blowers of Death–sounds like a good movie title!
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good YouTube project…similar to the
**
HD PREMIERE! The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon by Richard Gale
Click to expand...
**

Maybe we could get together and put it together.😃 Sounds like fun.
 
Motorization of what I used to do on large acreage is also over the top. Another problem is that people are importing no indigenous vegetation and artificially propping them up with irrigation. Raking is the old fashioned way of doing this and the best for your yard, not to mention your health. The pollen and dust is the main problem. My issue with leaf blowers is not the noise as much as the stirring. It’s a fact that on windy days my allergies flair up dramatically, putting me down for 2 to 3 days with severe headaches and allergies, which builds up fluid on my left ear.

Let me give you an analogy among current cities and environmental impacts. Recently, cities have been issuing requests to residents to avoid dumping food particals in the sinks because is ends up costing the city more money to process and clean up. They justified it further by saying it would reduce the necessity of having to send crews out to push it through the system. This nearly makes having a garbage disposer totally unecessary.

Another issue that is old hat now, was the garbage compacter. You hardly ever see any products for these items anymore. Then look at irrigation systems, though very convenient, are not legal to run during certain hours in arid regions. So, watering by hand or now a new design irrigation system is being required.

The increase use of the blower is not nearly as low as you describe, since most of the residents in my neighborhood have service companies doing their lawns and use blowers. It may cost more to use the arms, but it’s good for everyone to avoid them. Allergy sufferers spend tons of money on medication that might otherwise save the medical industry millions, if not more. I suspect that blowers will eventual be outlawed in certain areas of the U.S. I know that in some cities, they are not permitted by ordinace, assuming the laws remained in place. Having worked in the Urban Planning and Civil Engineering arena, I have a bit of inside information dealing with environmental impacts dealing with various components of these issues. I’m not claiming to be an “expert”, but I do know more about the day to day dealings with certain EPA requirements pushing ahead to stop many different practices that ultimately save many companies tons of money. It’s controversial. But in my situation I’d prefer someone just shoot me than put up with the pain and suffering I endure on a day to day basis. It’s gone from minimal Spring time to year round now. The constant drainage is working double time on my digestive system. I already sleep in a recliner and constantly hack throughout the night and day. There is no relieve. Nothing has worked. So why should I be forced to suffer to save someone the hassle of using a rake?🤷 Who knows, you might live longer by using a rake with the exercise.
KDF said:
I think leaf blowers affects are a small-localized event. I am and asthmatic and so is my son. We live on 5 acres with hundreds of trees. We wear protective masks and have our inhalers with us. Without the blowers we’d be raking for weeks, which in itself can bring on asthma by constantly stirring the ground. Even in summer my riding mower causes more disturbance than a leaf blower. The other alternative, is a push a broom, which still stirs up the ground. Usually my need for the blower comes after I’ve run my lawn mower and trimmer (weed whacker if you like)

A couple of things to consider:
Why make a law that affects a small group of people? Remember I’m in that group. It is my responsibility to be prepared and carry my inhaler.

That first statistic is miss-leading… 900,000 ton of dust every dry day of the year? How is that concentration dispersed? How many days were sampled? Where did the sampling take place, in a big city, the Mohave Desert, or up in the Sierra Mountains?
  • Spring doesn’t break out over the US in one day but over the course of three months across the us.
  • How do they correlate the number of leaf blowers to dust increase? Did they track everyone each time they used them, what were there sampling methods?
Did they exclude other factor such as changes in weather, fire events like forest fires and how do you exclude smog that is produced in big cites such as LA, New York and Chicago which drift across the country every day?

“Noise bazooka”, really? The larger particulates they describe also tend fall back to the ground quicker than pollen or dust which can be stirred up just walking through areas with it.

Even in my neighbor hood I’ve yet to see more dust created with a “noise bazooka” than passing garbage truck produces or a car does on a busy city street or country road.

If the wind blows up in your neighborhood it has a lot more of and effect than a leaf blower.

I run mine once every 7-10 days during the spring and summer and about once week in the fall after that it is put until spring.

I am not trying to be flippant but the CDC’s conclusion has a lot of holes in it. Additionally I am tired of so much regulation in our lives. My use of a blower limits my exposure by cutting down the time I am blowing particulates around from weeks to a couple a days in a given month for only part of the year.

Respectfully
KDF
Click to expand...
 
Motorization of what I used to do on large acreage is also over the top. Another problem is that people are importing no indigenous vegetation and artificially propping them up with irrigation. Raking is the old fashioned way of doing this and the best for your yard, not to mention your health. The pollen and dust is the main problem. My issue with leaf blowers is not the noise as much as the stirring. It’s a fact that on windy days my allergies flair up dramatically, putting me down for 2 to 3 days with severe headaches and allergies, which builds up fluid on my left ear.

Let me give you an analogy among current cities and environmental impacts. Recently, cities have been issuing requests to residents to avoid dumping food particles in the sinks because is ends up costing the city more money to process and clean up. They justified it further by saying it would reduce the necessity of having to send crews out to push it through the system. This nearly makes having a garbage disposer totally unnecessary.

Another issue that is old hat now, was the garbage compacter. You hardly ever see any products for these items anymore. Then look at irrigation systems, though very convenient, are not legal to run during certain hours in arid regions. So, watering by hand or now a new design irrigation system is being required.

The increase use of the blower is not nearly as low as you describe, since most of the residents in my neighborhood have service companies doing their lawns and use blowers. It may cost more to use the arms, but it’s good for everyone to avoid them. Allergy sufferers spend tons of money on medication that might otherwise save the medical industry millions, if not more. I suspect that blowers will eventual be outlawed in certain areas of the U.S. I know that in some cities, they are not permitted by ordinance, assuming the laws remained in place. Having worked in the Urban Planning and Civil Engineering arena, I have a bit of inside information dealing with environmental impacts dealing with various components of these issues. I’m not claiming to be an “expert”, but I do know more about the day to day dealings with certain EPA requirements pushing ahead to stop many different practices that ultimately save many companies tons of money. It’s controversial. But in my situation I’d prefer someone just shoot me than put up with the pain and suffering I endure on a day to day basis. It’s gone from minimal Spring time to year round now. The constant drainage is working double time on my digestive system. I already sleep in a recliner and constantly hack throughout the night and day. There is no relieve. Nothing has worked. So why should I be forced to suffer to save someone the hassle of using a rake?🤷 Who knows, you might live longer by using a rake with the exercise.
KDF said:
I think leaf blowers affects are a small-localized event. I am and asthmatic and so is my son. We live on 5 acres with hundreds of trees. We wear protective masks and have our inhalers with us. Without the blowers we’d be raking for weeks, which in itself can bring on asthma by constantly stirring the ground. Even in summer my riding mower causes more disturbance than a leaf blower. The other alternative, is a push a broom, which still stirs up the ground. Usually my need for the blower comes after I’ve run my lawn mower and trimmer (weed whacker if you like)

A couple of things to consider:
Why make a law that affects a small group of people? Remember I’m in that group. It is my responsibility to be prepared and carry my inhaler.

That first statistic is miss-leading… 900,000 ton of dust every dry day of the year? How is that concentration dispersed? How many days were sampled? Where did the sampling take place, in a big city, the Mohave Desert, or up in the Sierra Mountains?
  • Spring doesn’t break out over the US in one day but over the course of three months across the us.
  • How do they correlate the number of leaf blowers to dust increase? Did they track everyone each time they used them, what were there sampling methods?
Did they exclude other factor such as changes in weather, fire events like forest fires and how do you exclude smog that is produced in big cites such as LA, New York and Chicago which drift across the country every day?

“Noise bazooka”, really? The larger particulates they describe also tend fall back to the ground quicker than pollen or dust which can be stirred up just walking through areas with it.

Even in my neighbor hood I’ve yet to see more dust created with a “noise bazooka” than passing garbage truck produces or a car does on a busy city street or country road.

If the wind blows up in your neighborhood it has a lot more of and effect than a leaf blower.

I run mine once every 7-10 days during the spring and summer and about once week in the fall after that it is put until spring.

I am not trying to be flippant but the CDC’s conclusion has a lot of holes in it. Additionally I am tired of so much regulation in our lives. My use of a blower limits my exposure by cutting down the time I am blowing particulates around from weeks to a couple a days in a given month for only part of the year.

Respectfully
KDF
Click to expand...
 
I don’t know if leaf blowers add to allergens in the air. One would think so, at least marginally. Certainly I would think lawn mowers would as well. There’s at least as much stuff on the ground as there is with freshly-fallen leaves. You can’t use a leaf blower very successfully on old matted-down leaves, so we’re talking about fairly clean leaves and whatever the blower blows up off the ground in the process. But before focusing on them we really ought to ask whether it does any more than a lawn mower does. Maybe it’s a lot less, and lawn mowers might be the bigger problem.

Wonder how the allergy situation is in older neighborhoods versus newer ones. Worse or better? Are we reacting more to dust and molds or to the very complex chemical compounds that have not yet fully leached out of newer environmental surfaces?

I truly don’t know what accounts for the recorded increase in the occurrence of allergic reactions to airborne stuff. If one believes it’s on the increase, and not just an increased reporting thing, then one really has to wonder why. What has changed from, say, 30-40 years ago?

It certainly strikes me as possible that part of it could be a lack of exposure to allergens early in life, for which greater urban populations might be responsible. That seems to be the case with certain food-borne E Coli infections and diseases that are endemic in the third world early in life like polio. Lack of early exposure results in worse reactions later in life. In a temperate climate, people whose ancestors for millenia lived in temperate climates surely would have developed relatively effective reactions to temperate climate allergense, in the same way some people have developed relative immunities to ancient reactions like lactose intolerance. We certainly don’t read of overwhelming allergic reactions among, say, Europeans or Americans of old who were far more exposed to temperate climate allergens than we are. Why is it different now? Is a piece missing from the sequencing of development of temperate claimate allergen tolerance?

Or has something been added; something to which we cannot, by urban exposure, develop tolerance; something our bodies can’t figure out how to handle, like petroleum distillates that are in virtually every new product?

I don’t’ know the answer, though I suspect the lack of early exposure is a big factor. But while I sympathize with the affected posters, I think focusing on leaf blowers is probably misplaced.
 
Makita BBX7600N 75.6 CC 4-Stroke Backpack Blower is the latest best leaf blower brand known to me so far… It has padded shoulder straps and ventilated back panel with lumbar support for improved operator comfort. I am having this from past 6 months … It is easy to start, not as loud as I thought it would be and very powerful too
 
Where do you live that that you are exposed to leaf-blowers year-round?
 
This is a classic case of post hoc ergo prompter hoc fallacy. Correlation does not equal causation. One could chart hundreds of other increased things in modern life that would correlate just as well. No, we should not out law leaf blowers. The only thing we need to outlaw is outlawing things willy nilly.
 
Goomects40 said:
Makita BBX7600N 75.6 CC 4-Stroke Backpack Blower is the latest best leaf blower brand known to me so far… It has padded shoulder straps and ventilated back panel with lumbar support for improved operator comfort. I am having this from past 6 months … It is easy to start, not as loud as I thought it would be and very powerful too
Click to expand...
Was that related to the topic?
 
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