> And it serves no ecological purpose.

At least from my experience, it's not done for ecological purposes. It's primarialy done to clear pathways for safety, maintenance, and aesthetics.

Some people do blow a whole lawn, but that never struck me as useful. Cleaning up the path is nice though, and depending on your paths, makes plenty of noise already.

Worldwide.

Sucks to be an earthling trapped here with leaf blower jerks.

France. I know my city workers use them to clean the streets in autumn. Wet leaves are slipery. Then people mostly use rakes AFAIK, or the lawn mower.

Though I know some tools, such as branch shredders are regulated in some residential areas, but I don't frequent those.

I blow the leaves off my gravel driveway that winds through woodland. I got 2 Ryobi electric leaf blowers free with different cordless tools and so I dual wield them as I walk down the driveway a few times every fall.

I don't care about leaves on the lawn.