Poll question: Gas powered blowers

A ban on gas-powered leaf blowers is slated to take effect in July in California, one of a growing number of jurisdictions where restrictions on gas-powered lawn equipment have taken root.

Similar rules are on the books in Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon; Montgomery County, Maryland; Burlington, Vermont; and Evanston, Illinois, among other places.

Air pollution and noise pollution are the key complaints against gas-powered two-stroke engines that run OPE. The landscape industry, meanwhile, appreciated the power of gas engines.

"New Jersey is bombarded with leaves and stuff to clean up,”  Rich Goldstein, president of the New Jersey Landscape Contractors Association, told the Associated Press, in opposition to bans. “We’re not California, we’re not Florida. We have leaves. The average house in New Jersey, you take away 30 to 50 cubic feet of leaves each fall. That’s a lot of leaves.”

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