Screenshot from Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2017.
The Wall Street Journal has a new item in its "The Numbers" series, meant to present surprising data findings. This one, by Jo Craven McGinty, It begins:
Once autumn leaves are down, landscapers with leaf blowers strapped to their backs pour into America’s neighborhoods like hornets from a hive.
Which raises an interesting question: How much pollution does a leaf blower emit?
The short answer is more than a car, a truck or any other modern passenger vehicle.
The story goes into the technological, economic, environmental, and political ramifications of the ongoing effort to phase out two-stroke engines used in lawn equipment. They are already banned, overtaken by new technology, or otherwise out of use in most other applications in the United States, including watercraft and scooters. Well worth reading.