Put your back into raking, and put the blower away

Put your back into raking, and put the blower away

The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Saturday, October 06, 2007

Re: Blown away, Sept. 20.

I found the very idea of having a review of leaf blowers in the Style Weekly last Saturday totally irritating. To me, a leaf-blower is a symbol of everything we're doing wrong.

Let's start with our physical health. Raking leaves is good exercise. Bending down and scooping them into yard waste bags is also good exercise. In the very same section of the newspaper, you ran two health-related articles: one about correct food-portion sizes and another about a specially designed diet plate. Also, I appreciate the articles in your 14-week series called Nutrition Navigator. We all need to educate ourselves about how we can improve our health through basic healthy lifestyle choices. Along with diet, our collective lack of exercise is a major contributor to many health problems. It seemed ironic to turn the page, after reading the nutrition articles, to find the leaf-blower review.

Leaf-blowers are noisy, environmentally offensive devices primarily for the lazy, Mary Ellen Kot writes, and she can't understand why the Citizen would rejoice in reviewing them.

The article starts out by reminding us of the difficulties of raking: "Raking leaves can be back-breaking work." There was absolutely no connection to the healthy lifestyle mood of the previous pieces.

However, my main objection to leaf-blowers is their environmental cost. The nonsensical waste of electricity is my first objection, followed closely by my loathing of the noise. They are right up there alongside my hatred of personal watercraft such as Sea-Doos. What a difference these two inventions make in the enjoyment of the outdoors, for all of us who value peace and quiet.

Unfortunately for us, there are a lot of people out there who just love these noisemakers, as your reviewer enthusiastically demonstrated in describing one blower: "Best value for your money, this loud and throaty blower is so powerful, you need to wear safety goggles to protect your eyes from the flying dirt and debris. ...[I]t devours anything that crosses its path. Beasty." How pathetic.

If you have health problems that prevent you from raking your leaves this year, why not hire a neighbourhood student to do the job for you? You'll be helping both them and the environment.

Mary Ellen Kot,

Ottawa

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007