Gas-Powered Leaf BlowersA Sustainable Montclair Guide

A Public HealthHazard

Gas-powered leaf blowers expose residents and workers to dangerous noise levels and toxic fumes. Montclair and Maplewood prohibit gas leaf blowers year‑round. Workers who work closest to the machines and children living and playing nearby are most at risk.

Physician with American Academy of Pediatrics: Why Children Are Very Vulnerable to Gas Leaf Blowers

Webinar hosted by Sustainable Montclair featuring Sarah Evans, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

The Massachusetts Medical Society has acknowledged the risks of gas leaf blowers. Brita Lundberg, MD, Board member of Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, spells out the dangers in this video.

In short

Children are the most exposed. They breathe more air for their size, and their lungs are still developing. Children's hearing is still developing, and the American Academy of Pediatrics warns that hearing loss from noise is usually permanent. Up close, a gas leaf blower is loud enough to cause that damage, and even 50 feet away its noise is well above what the World Health Organization recommends. Children at schools and parks, on sidewalks and in strollers, and in their own backyards are in harm’s way every time a gas leaf blower is in operation.
The fumes are toxic. They contain carbon monoxide, benzene and formaldehyde, which harm breathing and are linked to cancer. What people breathe.
The noise is as loud as a jackhammer. And it carries through walls and windows. The noise.

100+ dB at the operator's earas loud as a jackhammer

Up to 80 dB 50 feet awaywell above the 55 dB the World Health Organization recommends.

Figures from the Mount Sinai Institute for Exposomic Research, Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers are Health Hazards (2025), and Walker & Banks, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Characteristics of Lawn and Garden Equipment Sound (2017).

The Ask

Ask your town to end gas leaf blowers.

The Institute for Exposomic Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai recommends it directly: ask your local officials to join the towns that have ended or limited the use of gas-powered leaf blowers. Montclair and Maplewood show it can be done.

We are always happy to help other public and environmental health advocates. Write to us at sustainablemontclair@gmail.com.

Public Health

What the medical evidence shows

Who Is Most at Risk

Children, pregnant women, and the workers themselves

Doctors at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai warn that the fumes and noise from gas-powered leaf blowers “pose multiple hazards to human health.” Those hazards do not fall on everyone equally.

Children breathe in more air for every pound of body weight than adults do, so they take in more of whatever the machine puts into the air. Their lungs, ears, eyes and other organs are still developing, which makes them more sensitive to harm than adults.

Infants and young children are especially vulnerable to the noise. Their hearing is still forming, and loud noise can disrupt that development.

Pregnant women face a risk too: studies have linked exposure to excessive noise during pregnancy to preterm birth and to high-frequency hearing loss in the child.

Landscape workers who run these machines for eight hours a day or more are at high risk of health harm.

Source: Mount Sinai Institute for Exposomic Research, Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers are Health Hazards. Mount Sinai's Environmental Pediatrics team is part of the Region 2 Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, which serves New York and New Jersey.

What People Breathe

Toxic fumes, right next to our homes

The fumes from a gas leaf blower contain carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, benzene, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and fine particles. The workers using the machine, and the children and neighbors nearby, breathe them in. These chemicals harm breathing and make asthma more likely and more severe. Mount Sinai notes that they are also associated with cancer, heart disease, dementia, and autism.

Source: Mount Sinai Institute for Exposomic Research, Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers are Health Hazards.

The Noise

As loud as a jackhammer, and it carries

The person using a gas leaf blower can be exposed to more than 100 decibels — as loud as a jackhammer or a jet taking off. That is far above the level at which repeated exposure causes permanent hearing loss.

The noise does not stay in one yard. Gas blowers make a deep, low-frequency sound that travels long distances and passes through walls and windows. The World Health Organization recommends that daytime outdoor noise stay at or below 55 decibels. Some manufacturers' own estimates put a bystander 50 feet away at around 70 decibels.

Noise does more than damage hearing. It makes it harder to talk, to learn, and to concentrate on complex tasks, and it raises stress.

Source: Mount Sinai Institute for Exposomic Research, Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers are Health Hazards.

The ‘Public Health Menace’ of Fall in America

Gas Leaf Blowers and Their Health Impacts, presented by Quiet Yards Greenwich

The Secret History of the Leaf Blower

In Their Words

What doctors and health experts say

“There’s no threshold for the negative health effects of particulate matter, benzene, nitrogen dioxide. There’s no level that is safe for exposure.”

Dr. Brita Lundberg, Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility. Source: presentation on the health risks of gas-powered leaf blowers (video).

“Even short-term exposure to particle pollution and ozone-forming chemicals generated by the machines has been proven to cause or contribute to health concerns like: asthma, heart attacks, cardiovascular disease, COPD, early death.”

Respiratory Health Association. Source: Leaf Blowers Leave Lungs Vulnerable (fact sheet).

“The ears of infants and young children are especially vulnerable to the high intensity noise that leaf blowers produce because their auditory systems are undergoing rapid growth and development, and these developmental processes are easily disrupted.”

Mount Sinai Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit, letter signed by Dr. Philip Landrigan and colleagues. Source: letter to the Eastchester, NY Town Board, April 22, 2010.

“Noise is more than just a nuisance. It’s been characterized as a public health hazard by the American Public Health Association.”

Dr. Sarah Evans, Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Source: Sustainable Montclair webinar (video).

“If it is in our power to keep our children healthy, to protect them from harm, is it not our responsibility to do that?”

Dr. Eve Meltzer Krief, Vice President, New York Chapter 2, American Academy of Pediatrics. Source: testimony on gas leaf blowers and children (video).

Towns Act

Northeast towns that have ended gas leaf blowers year‑round

In the Northeast

Towns that have ended gas leaf blowers year‑round

Each place below links to its own ordinance or official government page.

Year‑round, in effect now

Larchmont, NY: Since January 1, 2022.
Maplewood, NJ: Since January 1, 2023.
Montclair, NJ: Since October 15, 2023.
Nyack, NY: Since January 1, 2024.
Mamaroneck (Town), NY: Since January 1, 2025.
White Plains, NY: Since January 6, 2025.
Lexington, MA: Since March 15, 2026.
Arlington, MA: Since March 15, 2026.
Cambridge, MA: Since March 15, 2026.
Rye, NY: Since May 1, 2026.