What are the facts about air pollution and health?

Workers inhale benzene, formaldehyde, and ultrafine particles linked to lung disease and cancer. Children, older adults, and those with asthma suffer the most.

Noise pollution is not the only issue with gas powered blowers. It’s worth looking at air-quality data, which are staggering, that you might not have seen. A 2023 EPA assessment found that a typical commercial gas blower emits as much smog-forming pollution in one hour as a modern car driving 1,100 miles. That means a single crew working a day in our township produces the same hydrocarbon load as hundreds of commuters.

Workers inhale benzene, formaldehyde, and ultrafine particles linked to lung disease and cancer. Children, older adults, and those with asthma suffer the most. The Icahn School of Medicine report called gas leaf blowers a “severe and avoidable occupational hazard,” noting documented cases of respiratory and neurological damage from two-stroke engine exhaust. When we ban gas blowers, we reduce a major local source of toxic emissions.

Some worry about the price of new equipment. But what about the price of hospital visits, and missed workdays from the air pollution gas blowers cause? The Icahn School’s analysis estimates that every 10,000 hours of gas blower use creates public-health costs of more than $40,000 in medical and productivity losses, costs borne by all through health-insurance premiums and taxes. Switching to electric saves money we never see leaving our pockets.

When Commissioner Sinai said at a recent meeting “people adapt,” he spoke for communities that already have. More than 200 and ever-growing number of communities have healthier workers and happier residents since their bans took effect. There has been no economic collapse for landscapers when gas blowers are prohibited, just cleaner air and safer, quieter neighborhoods. Lower Merion can join them now and protect our public health 

DOCTORS WITHOUT BLOWERS

3 Lower Merion physicians testified before the Township Commisioners, lending their medical expertise to what has become a public health crisis that affects most of us.