Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogel bomb here Ah, the sounds of autumn, the
Speaker 1: satisfying crunch of a crisp apple or fallen leaves under
Speaker 1: your feet, or the teeth grinding noise of a leaf
Speaker 1: blower powered by electric or gasoline motors that propel air
Speaker 1: out of a nozzle to send leaves and grass cuttings.
Speaker 1: Flying leaf blowers are probably the most villainized devices in
Speaker 1: the lawn care universe due to the noise that they admit.
Speaker 1: In the mid nineteen seventies, when leaf blowers became ubiquitous
Speaker 1: in the United States, to California, cities adopted early bands
Speaker 1: of the equipment, Caramel by the Sea and Beverly Hills
Speaker 1: labeled the leaf blowers a noise nuisance and banned their use,
Speaker 1: a move that has been followed by hundreds of other
Speaker 1: cities across the United States to some degree. But what
Speaker 1: is it about leaf blowers that people hate? Is it
Speaker 1: the decibels the constancy? The leaf blowers pose real dangers
Speaker 1: to the health of users or others who happened to
Speaker 1: be within earshot. Increasingly, the answer appears to be yes
Speaker 1: to all of the above. Leaflowers may send leaves and
Speaker 1: long clippings for a ride, but the gusts, which reach
Speaker 1: a hundred and eighty to two hundred and eighty miles
Speaker 1: per hour that's about two hundred nine four hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty kilometers per hour, also create a nose clogging swirl
Speaker 1: of fungi, spores, herbicides, and microbes. The resulting dust is
Speaker 1: so aggravating to people with allergies asthma, bronchitis, and other
Speaker 1: respiratory maladies that the American Lung Association recommends staying away
Speaker 1: from leaf flowers altogether. And then there's the air pollution
Speaker 1: operating a commercial leaf blower for one hour, and it's
Speaker 1: as much smog forming pollution as you would if you
Speaker 1: drove a recent midsize car, as say Toyota camera from
Speaker 1: Los Angeles to Denver, which is about a one thousand,
Speaker 1: one hundred mile or one tho hundred kilometer trip. That's
Speaker 1: because most leaf blowers use two cycle engines. They're lightweight
Speaker 1: and inexpensive, but they require a mixture of gasoline and
Speaker 1: oil to run. Unlike more complex engines, they don't have
Speaker 1: separate chambers for fueling lubricants. When operated, the engine wastes
Speaker 1: approximately one third of the combined mixture, releasing carbon monoxide,
Speaker 1: nitrous oxide, and hydrocarbons into the air. These three toxins
Speaker 1: are some of the main culprits and the air pollution
Speaker 1: from leaf blowers. Carbon Monoxide helps form smog. Nitrous oxide
Speaker 1: is a prime ingredient in acid rain and has been
Speaker 1: linked to global warming. Hydrocarbons are cancer causing organic compounds
Speaker 1: that also contribute to smog formation. Plus, leaf blowers are noisy.
Speaker 1: How noisy are they When you engage in conversation, that's
Speaker 1: a noise level of about sixty deciples, according to the
Speaker 1: Center for Hearing and Communication. If you're strolling on a
Speaker 1: sidewalk and a car goes by, that's about seventy deciples.
Speaker 1: A leaf blower, even at fifty ft or fifteen meters away,
Speaker 1: can be up to seventy five deciples, and right up
Speaker 1: close that jumps well into the nineties. According to the
Speaker 1: World Health Organization, any noise above seventy five decibles risks
Speaker 1: causing physical hearing damage. And then there's the mental toll.
Speaker 1: Ms Aphonia is a relatively newly classified condition in which
Speaker 1: people are angered by particular sounds like chewing or knuckle cracking.
Speaker 1: Although leaf blowers aren't mentioned in the diagnosis parameters, it
Speaker 1: stands to reason that missophonia may be related to people's
Speaker 1: dislike of the machines because they're extra sensitive to sound.
Speaker 1: Preliminary data shows that miss aphones brains may have a
Speaker 1: hypersensitive connection between the auditory system and the limbic system,
Speaker 1: which is the part of the brain that's responsible for
Speaker 1: creating emotions. It's so much a part of life or
Speaker 1: misophones that they can be shocked when others don't feel
Speaker 1: or react the same way to certain noises. But being
Speaker 1: irritated by leaf blowers doesn't necessarily mean you're asaphone. Erica Walker,
Speaker 1: a doctoral student at Harvard University's chance School of Public Health,
Speaker 1: discovered that it is far less irritating to create a
Speaker 1: sound than it is to hear it. In a survey
Speaker 1: of one thousand fifty residents and more than a dozen
Speaker 1: Boston neighborhoods, Walker found that the majority of respondents said
Speaker 1: they couldn't control or get away from noises like leaf blowers,
Speaker 1: and they believed that no one really cared that it
Speaker 1: annoyed them. What's more, other research has shown that leafblowers
Speaker 1: emit a low frequency noise that penetrates through outer wall
Speaker 1: into homes and businesses in a way that some other
Speaker 1: noises passing vehicles, for example, do not. However, leaf blowers
Speaker 1: have become an integral part of commercial lawn care. While
Speaker 1: a leaf blower may sound like fingernails across chalkboard to you,
Speaker 1: for the businesses that rely on them for a portion
Speaker 1: of their livelihood, it's probably music to the ears. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was written by Laurie L. Dove and produced by
Speaker 1: Tristan McNeil. For more on this and tons of other
Speaker 1: sensory topics, visit our home planet, how stuff Works dot com.