Sign of the season: A landscape workers faces a carpet of fallen leaves in 2020.
Photographer: Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images
The Leaf Blowers Will Not Go Quietly
Scores of US cities are trying to muffle the seasonal din of gas-powered leaf blowers. But the new regulations and fines are generating resistance, too.
On a late October day in Evanston, Illinois, the sound of grumbling motorcycles and car horns filled the air. Largely absent: the whine of leaf blowers.
In April 2023, the city banned the use of gas-powered lawn-care tools, joining the more than 100 cities across the US that have instituted all-out prohibitions or partial restrictions on leaf blowers. This fall marks the second autumn since the law went into effect. According to the city, it’s been somewhat effective in muffling the seasonal cacophony, with 43 leaf blower complaints received in October this year, compared with 140 in October 2023. But the ordinance hasn’t calmed the broader conflict over these polarizing fixtures of the American residential landscape.