Don't use leaf blowers; those are a huge source of outdoor particulates.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
> Brand new gas-powered leaf blowers and lawn mowers will soon become scarce in California. In October 2021, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law banning the sale of gas-powered lawn mowers and leaf blowers, as well as any other equipment using small off-road engines, also known as SOREs. These engines traditionally power equipment used in lawn care and landscaping.
> Small engine-based tools are a surprisingly large source of carbon emissions and air pollution. According to the California Air Resources Board, just one hour of gas leaf blower use is the equivalent of driving 1,100 miles. Running a gas lawn mower for the same period equates to a 300-mile drive.
https://www.cnet.com/home/yard-and-outdoors/loud-gas-belchin...
https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/msprog/offroad/sm_en_fs.pdf
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/04/30/gas-le... ("Gas leaf blowers and lawn mowers are shockingly bad for the planet. Bans are beginning to spread.")
(electric landscaping tools are at parity, check out the EGO brand for an example: https://egopowerplus.com/)
There is a reason combustion vehicles are mandated to have a catalytic converter, and why diesel vehicles must filter particulates.
https://phys.org/news/2014-05-two-stroke-scooters-super-poll...
Edit: For example, you’ll see where I asked my initial question here
I'm all for electrifying yard tools, but electric blowers still aren't anywhere near a high end Stihl or Husqvarna in performance.
Compare Table 3 to Table 5. PM emissions from exhaust are on the order of 1 gram per hour. Whereas fugitive dust emissions, depending on the surface, are 100s or 1000s of grams per hour.
There isn't a lot of data on how much the chemical makeup of particulates affects health, nor on what the makeup of particulates likely to be kicked up by a leaf-blower are. At least some of the particulates from two-stroke engine emissions are known to be really bad (e.g. partially combusted lubricants). So the jury is out on if the particulate related health risks are dominated by the engine or the dust. If you think "all PM2.5 is bad" then it's almost certainly dominated by the dust though.
1: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/Health%20...
Perhaps this is true for certain types of air pollution, but there's no way it's true for carbon emissions. CO2 emitted has to be proportional to gasoline burned. And there's no way a leaf blower is consuming 25 gallons of gas per hour.
To drive 1100 miles, the commenter above gave an extremely generous 25 gallons of gas (likely closer to 40 for a non-Prius).
One gallon of gas produces about 20 pounds of CO2, which is about 73% oxygen (from the atmosphere) by weight. The remaining 27% of the weight comes from carbon.
So, one gallon of gasoline provides 20*0.27=5.4lbs of carbon to the CO2 produced. Multiply by 25, and you're looking at over 135lbs of carbon alone coming from your source when 25 gallons of gas are burned.
Considering that the amount of weight carried around by the user of a leaf blower is on the low tens of pounds, and not hundreds, it seems ludicrous to presume that a leaf blower produces anywhere near the amount of CO2 in an hour as does a car driving 1100 miles.
Even without the oil - 2-stroke engines will run on straight petrol, albeit briefly - they still emit an obscene amount of unburnt fuel.
This is the table in the source:
+--------------------+-------------------+-------------+---------------+
| | Exhaust Emissions | New vehicle | Older vehicle |
+--------------------+-------------------+-------------+---------------+
| Hydrocarbons | 199.26 | 0.39 | 201.9 |
| Carbon Monoxide | 423.53 | 15.97 | 1310 |
| Particulate Matter | 6.43 | 0.13 | 0.78 |
| Fugitive Dust | 48.6-1031 | N/A | N/A |
+--------------------+-------------------+-------------+---------------+
> Another way to visualize the data is to compare emissions for a given amount of leaf blower operation to miles traveled by car. The Air Resources Board regularly publishes such emissions benchmarks. Thus, for the average 1999 leaf blower and car data presented in Table 9, we calculate that hydrocarbon emissions from one-half hour of leaf blower operation equal about 7,700 miles of driving, at 30 miles per hour average speed. The carbon monoxide emission benchmark is signficantly different. For carbon monoxide, one-half hour of leaf blower useage would be equivalent to about 440 miles of automobile travel at 30 miles per hour average speed.
So will old ones, if you run them on the right fuel.
My 25-year-old Range Rover has a 4.6 litre engine adapted to run on propane which is - under the right circumstances - a *negative* emission vehicle. It can have measurably less CO and HC in the exhaust than in the intake air (city air heavily contaminated with CO and HC for example from bus engines).
For most homeowners. Not for commercial usage. There's that battery charge issue still. There are workarounds that can help though.
A complex pays for regular landscaping services which turns into hours of painfully disruptive noise pollution often in the early hours for residents.
Stihl gas blower: 239mph 912cfm
Not even getting into weight, cost, or refuel times - that's extremely far from parity.
These engines not only produce a ton of particulate emissions, but also a lot of half-burned and unburned hydrocarbons. Including formaldehyde, benzene, and all kinds of other crap.
You can at least filter out particulates with an N99 mask, but it does nothing against hydrocarbons.
But i suppose they might temporarily kick up a bunch of dust, regardless of power source...
To me, this is why raking just makes sense. I can’t stand the dust from leaf blowers. And often, just mowing over the leaves is adequate and better for the environment.
New thing I'm trying this year is to pull garden weeds and toss them on top of the grass right before a mow as a two-bird-with-one-stone compost in place free grass fertilizer.
[edit]
I found a report[1]; on page 22, the median estimated "fugitive dust" emmisions of blowing on a shoulder, or curb is about 480g (1lb) of PM2.5 per hour. It does note that this is a pure calculation and not empirically tested though. The entire range of their calculations put fugitive dust as higher particulate emissions than the exhaust (though the exhaust particulate of a 3hp leaf-blower (i.e. high-powered commercial) is already nearly 2 orders of magnitude higher than a modern light-duty vehicle and a 0.8hp (i.e. typical personal-use leafblower)).
1: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2018-11/Health%20...