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> I think a rake is also fine

This! Unless you have a good reason to use a leaf blower (huge yard, physically incapable… that’s it?) use a rake. It’s good for your health to do some manual labor. We’ve spent the Industrial Revolution trying to do less physical labor and we’ve hit a tipping point where many of us are doing far too little.

I have always used a rake. On the other hand, my wife likes to rake out the garden beds, which always pulls a lot of mulch out with the leaves. We have talked about getting an electric leaf blower for some years now. I suppose that the main reason we haven't is that we would use it maybe five times a year, and it would clutter the garage.

Personally I think every item that makes a certain amount of noise should have to pay a tax on every unit per measured dB.

We should be making devices that ruin the environment more expensive than their quieter counterparts.

Perhaps the tax can also scale logarithmically.