BRRRRRRRRRR. A ban on gas-powered leaf blowers is arriving in Cambridge.

Boston Globe

12-03-2025

Prohibitions of this kind have swept through the region as cities try to pare back the use of gas leaf blowers — and their negative impacts on the climate and quality of life — with mixed reactions from homeowners and mixed results.
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In Cambridge, the transition to all-electric blowers, which are quieter and don't emit those familiar fumes, has been well underway for years.
'It's just part of the routine now,' said John Nardone, deputy commissioner of the city's public works department, which has been increasing its use of electric blowers over time, well before it's required to by city ordinance.
Sure, the electric blowers are nowhere near as powerful as their gas-fueled counterparts and become less and less useful in the fall, especially when the leaves are wet, heavy, and difficult to clear at scale without the torque that, for now, only device powered by fossil fuels can provide.
But they've been getting better, he said, and in most cases, smaller parks can be rid of leaves and other debris with equipment powered by batteries, which the department now charges overnight and lugs from job site to job site.
'It can be a pain in the neck, especially when you're trying to really get through something quickly and move on to the next part,' he said. 'Maybe the technology isn't exactly where we need it to be, but it's sufficient enough for us to be able to maintain our parks at a level that people expect.'
There are carve-outs
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The city, per the ordinance, can also still use gas blowers in emergencies or
to clear debris from under cars that are illegally parked on street-sweeping days. Cambridge, since 2023, has followed a policy of
Residents, meanwhile, will have to make the switch by this weekend if they want to use leaf blowers to start their spring cleaning.
Many already have.
Electric leaf blowers, like the kind Cambridge public works crews use on the city's parks, have gotten better with time. They still don't pack the same punch as ones that use gas, landscapers say.
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Gas leaf blowers, like this one used by a private landscaping company in Cambridge in 2023, are more powerful, but critics highlight how despite their compact size they contribute heavily to greenhouse gas emissions, as well as air and noise pollution, in communities where they are used.
Lane Turner/Globe Staff
Cambridge's Tags Hardware, in Porter Square, has only carried electric leaf-blowers for the past seven years, said Mike Mongeau, the store's hardware manager. His customers like the benefits of using electric tools, he said, including that they don't require their owners to work with or store fuel at home.
'We haven't sold gas equipment for quite some time,' Mongeau said.
For landscaping companies, the shift won't be quite as easy.
Complying with the patchwork of rules in towns that have outlawed various aspects of leaf blower-reliant lawn work has already 'been a very big hassle,' said Andrew Kosko, of Watertown-based Kosko Landscaping, which is one of the
Kosko worries that switching to electric equipment will be expensive and that the cost of landscaping for his customers will go up as a result.
'I'm not too happy about this whole thing,' he said. 'Hopefully something happens and they change their mind.'
Other companies have tried to be proactive.
R & S Landscaping, a Medford-based company, has, for the last three years, been ditching gas.
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It has long worked with Cambridge as a contractor who helps the city clear its parks and cemetery. When officials enacted the ban, said co-owner Keri Brown, she didn't fight it.
'We figured it was a sign of the times,' she said. 'It was going to happen, sooner or later.'
Using electric blowers slows things down. She estimates it takes 20-50 percent longer to clear properties of leaves than it did when gas blowers reigned.
This year, she said, they will use gas-powered devices as a last resort, possibly in the fall, when the most troublesome wet leaves begin to accumulate.
'That will be a challenge once the city is fully electric,' she said.
Any hassle will be worth it, said City Councilor Patricia Nolan, who pushed for the ban.
James Roach with his electric blower in Cambridge last week.
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Gas-powered leaf blowers, she said, are a menace in multiple ways, emitting noxious fumes and potentially releasing as much greenhouse gas in an hour as
So a transition is long overdue, she said. She hopes such bans spread.
'I wish the whole state would move to it,' Nolan said. 'It makes no sense that we would allow something to continue to be used that's clearly harmful.'
Leaf-blower regulations have gained popularity in recent years. Some limit noise, others the time of year when that sound is allowed.
A ban on gas-powered leaf blowers
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Some leaf blower bans have been ill-fated. In February, officials in South Portland, Maine, abandoned an effort to outlaw them after pushback that included city councilors
Nolan said the debate in Cambridge was much more civil.
There may still be room to advance, she said. Nolan believes the gas-powered versions of other lawn tools may be next on the chopping block.
Whether the rules will be followed is another question.
'Enforcement has been an issue, and compliance has been a big issue,'
said Jamie Banks, who lives in Lincoln and founded a nonprofit
She backs an effort at the State House, which has yet to gain traction, that would create
Meanwhile, Cambridge's colleges,
which control wide swaths of the city's acreage, have been making the transition well ahead of the new requirement.
About 70 percent of the leaf blowers Harvard uses are electric, a spokesperson said, adding that the plan is for the university's blowers to be all-electric by the end of the year.
MIT plans to use only electric leaf blowers this spring and summer, but hasn't committed to cutting out gas in the fall, when the job is harder to do, a spokesperson said.
In the end, the success of the transition to electric may depend on the willingness of property owners, large and small, to change their expectations about how lawns are supposed to look, experts said.
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'Prices will go up for maintenance in Cambridge if people want the same garden aesthetic that they have,' said Catherine Brownlee, managing director of a Belmont-based company called Landscape Collaborative, Inc., which has residential clients in Cambridge. 'It's just going to take a lot more time.'
She said she has heard from neighbors in the summer months, when gas blowers are already off limits in the city, who complain about stray leaves and dirt left in their yards.
'They'll say it looks messier than the guy next door, who's got a company who doesn't care about the regulation and just blows,' Brownlee said.
Perhaps a ban will lead to change, she said, and people will adjust to seeing New England lawns that aren't as pristine as they once were.
'Maybe there will be a grassroots trend,' she said.
Spencer Buell can be reached at