Pointless and harmful — here's why leaf blowers suck

Noisy, polluting, disruptive... leave the leaf blower off your present list this year 

Battery-powered leaf blowers are much quieter and cleaner than two-stroke engines — but they still stir up dust, pollen and mold

If you had to come up with an invention that is as pointless as it is harmful, you would be hard-pressed to do better than the petrol-powered leaf blower. First of all, there’s the racket. Producing around 100 decibels of noise, a leaf blower is similar to the level of sound produced by a jet aircraft taking off.

Even at a distance of 250 metres, people are exposed to noise levels well above the World Health Organisation’s maximum safe level of 55 decibels. A single leaf blower can disturb an entire neighbourhood, and there are thousands in use across Ireland, by contractors, local authorities and individuals, with little or no oversight on their harmful impacts.