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Comment by collinmcnulty | Hacker News Reader

I would gladly be part of a neighborhood battery swap pool if it would help get rid of the near constant running of gas powered lawn equipment every morning. The sound and pollution are such a menace.

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I've witness two municipal employees using gas powered blowers on bushes for like an hour right in front of my building. It's completely useless because no one ever goes in the bushes (duh), and it's depleting the ground from nutrients for no reasons.

We really have to stop acting like gas is free and unlimited, burning fossil fuels used for legitimate reasons is bad enough, but burning them for such dumb tasks is an insult to nature.

I don't find gas leaf blowers exceptionally annoying. They aren't really anymore annoying that anything else going on in my area. It's what leaf blowers are used for that bother me. I see people just using them to blow leaves either into the street or into neighbors yards. What is the utility in this? Do they think leaves disappear?

They’re much louder than other common lawn equipment. People also tend to use them more frequently. Most of my neighbors will only run a lawnmower once a week or every 2 weeks. But they’ll be out there every day with a leaf blower during parts of the year.

Agreed, but I'm comparing them to the other stuff that is always going on. During the week you can always hear: roofing nailguns, wood chipper, backup beeper, & someone playing music.

That depends on where you’re at. I live in a neighborhood with 2-5 acre lots. I can’t hear any of those things unless my immediate neighbors are doing them, which they rarely are.

I can hear leaf blowers constantly though because you can hear them in a quarter mile radius.

Also local ordinances in most places ban loud noises without a permit. But lawn maintenance equipment is a specific exception.

The street sweeper sweeps all.

I've owned the property I've been referring to for over 6 years. Never seen a street sweeper. Leaves in the street from my neighbors yards are about 1 foot deep at the curb

Some municipalities have leaf pickup service if you pile up the leaves on the side of the street.

Mine requires them to be in paper bags or in buckets

Those bushes they're fluffing up likely only exist because in order to get the stormwater calculations to code they had to put them there for absorption for rain runoff (i.e. part of a SWPP). Or meet some stupid municipal requirement that precludes too much drab solid frontage on a building.

You paid for half a dozen people to spend a bit of labor on what would have 50yr ago been a simple "sidewalk for walking go here, grass everywhere else" exercise. And then every week you get to pay again to be annoyed by them maintaining it (in perpetuity, as they are required to by law, assuming it's part of a SWPP).

I couldn’t fathom running lawn equipment in the morning. If I try to mow in the morning my clippings are just globs of wet spinach thanks to all the dew. I get much better performance out of the equipment if I wait until the afternoon once everything has had a chance to dry out.

Good luck, electric leaf blowers are not quiet at all.

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