Josh Griffiths

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• 10 Dec, 2025 *

I can’t think of a worse invention than the leaf blower. I mean, who sees a bunch of leaves in their yard and says “gosh, I’m so tired of these leaves! I need a loud, obnoxious machine to strap to my back that guzzles gallons of gasoline so I can walk around the yard for half an hour to move these leaves a couple of feet into a pile.” They’re leaves bro, calm down.

I mean, let’s break this down:

They’re expensive. The cheapest electric one at the US hardware store Lowes costs $70, and that’s corded. The cheapest battery-powered one is $150. The cheapest gas one is a tiny thing for $120, and the next one up from that is $220. That doesn’t count the cost of electricity they need, or electricity to recharge the batter, or of course the cost of gas. 1.

Gas is bad. It’s 2025, what are we doing still using fossil fuels? 1.

They’re incredibly loud. The gas powered ones in particular are obscenely loud and obnoxious. They emit noise in excessive of 95db, more than enough to cause long-term hearing damage to anyone within a fifteen foot radius of them without hearing protection. Even if you are far away, even inside a house, you can still hear these damn things from very far away. I can hear one of those big gas ones from as far as six house down the street where I live. They’re so loud and annoying that many cities in the US are banning them outright. 1.

What’s even the point of them? They get rid of leaves, pine straw, and grass clippings off a lawn? Whoopty-fucking-do! Hideo-kojima-oooh-clapping.gif! Would you like a gold star for defeating the pest of... checks notes... leaves? Leaves on grass that is not native to this country, which requires hundreds of gallons of water to maintain, and prevent us from growing useful crops that we can actually use to feed ourselves? Seriously, imagine if instead of a front lawn that does nothing but boost your ego, you could instead plant corn, tomatoes, and squash there instead. You could feed yourself AND not even need a leaf blower. But, no, spend all that time, money, and effort destroying the environment and our ears so you can have a pretty, pretty square of green in front of your house. 1.

They’re not even effective. When the neighbor goes outside every fookin’ week after he uses his industrial-sized lawnmower on his tiny lawn and breaks out his leaf blower, I watch how long it takes him to actually clear the grass trimmings. It takes a solid forty five minutes. Back and forth, over the same area over and over again, desperately trying to get every little tiny cut piece of grass to move just a few feet into a pile or out into the street, because that’s just as good as the trash, isn’t it? Back and forth, up and down, dozens of time just blasting the shit out of whatever’s left of his lawn trying so desperately to get these clippings to move, and they either just stay there or they go somewhere he doesn’t want them to go. It’d be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. And, you know, loud.

It’s blogs like this where I’m glad I don’t have a comment section. I know some smart ass is going to say “oooh, don’t you know they’re good for preventing wildfires!” Yeah, so are fire extinguishers, but I don’t see anyone blasting their lawns with those every week. Maybe if we didn’t funnel billions of gallons of water a year into a handful of farms scattered across the country responsible for our food because we obliterated our own farm lands for pretty lawns and a bunch of condos, we wouldn’t have so many parts of the country perpetually dry in the first place.

In conclusion: leaf blowers are single-handed driving climate change and killing trillions of people a year. And they kick kittens AND puppies. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. More like DEAD Talk at this rate!