Leafblowers / landscaping equipment – Providence Noise Project

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Gas-fueled leafblowers are an increasingly important issue in a lot of American communities, and many have responded by regulating their use or prohibiting them altogether.¹

The primary issue with gas leafblowers is the noise and other air pollution produced by their outmoded and inefficient two-stroke engines,² which burn a mixture of gasoline and oil, and are also used in most lawnmowers, weed trimmers, and other landscaping equipment.

The extremely loud noise (80+ decibels) that these motors produce is unhealthy for their operators — even wearing industrial-grade hearing protection — and those living and working nearby. Prolonged exposure to excessive sound levels can permanently damage people‘s hearing and cause other health problems.

In addition to noise, gas-burning leafblowers also emit a variety of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic components, including carbon monoxide, ozone-forming chemicals, dangerously small particulates known as PM2.5, and climate-altering gases in the form of carbon dioxide, and damage natural habitats.

For more information on the adverse effects of gas leafblowers, see our Leafblower Resources.

Providence leafblower regulations

Providence residents have long cited gas-fueled leafblowers as a recurrent source of noise in their neighborhoods. In 2021, City Council members John Goncalves, Helen Anthony,³ and Nirva LaFortune (Ward 3) proposed an amendment to the noise-control ordinance (Sec. 16–97) that would have moved leafblowers from a general category of noise-generating equipment to a dedicated section of the city’s municipal code, and limited their hours of use in residential areas:

Sec. 16-100. Leaf Blowers
(a) It shall be unlawful for any person to use, at any time, a leafblower within any residential zone that has an average sound level exceeding 65 (65) dBA measured at or within the real property boundary of a receiving land use or when the same is audible to a person of reasonably sensitive hearing at a distance of two hundred (200) feet from its source.
(b) Leafblowers shall not be operated within the city between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 a.m.

The amendment received a hearing in the Ordinance Committee, but was never brought up for a vote, and was subsequently ignored.

In late November 2024, Councilmember Sue AnderBois unexpectedly introduced a new proposed ordinance amendment under Providence’s “Health and Sanitation” code to phase out gas-fueled leafblowers. Though its preamble cited both public health and the environment, it didn’t even begin regulating them until 2028, or prohibit their use completely until 2033(!) — an unconscionable and unnecessary delay.

Subsequent revisions to the proposed ordinance actually made it worse, by limiting a seasonal restriction on gas-leafblower use (from Oct. 1 to Dec. 15) solely to city agencies and contractors. The same seasonal restrictions on landscaping companies and residents — which comprise the vast majority of gas-leafblower use — don’t begin until 2030, which means Providence’s leafblower ordinance achieves no significant reductions in gas-leafblower emissions, including noise, for five years.

Moreover, the ordinance also does not :

Limit daily or weekly gas leafblower use within the seasonal period — e.g., by excluding a weekend day or holidays — as the proposed 2021 amendment did.
End sales of gas leafblowers in Providence — thereby enabling / encouraging continued investment in precisely the fossil fuel-burning equipment it purports to want to curtail.
Permanently end gas-leafblower use by anyone in Providence for nearly eight years after the proposal was first introduced.

Compounding this utter fiasco, the ordinance provide a vague and meager enforcement mechanism that relies on municipal building inspectors to issue non-escalating $100 fines to deter the illegal use of gas-fueled leafblowers. If the phrase “cost of doing business” occurs to you, you’re not alone.⁴

Providence residents have long advocated more incisive ways for the city to address gas-leafblower noise and other toxic pollution, including:

Limiting the days of the week that gas leafblowers and similar equipment can be used, such as prohibiting their use on Sundays, and state and federal holidays.⁵
Prohibiting sales of gas-fueled leafblowers and other landscaping equipment — or all two-stroke engines, as some U.S. jurisdictions (most notably California) have done — in the city.
Creating a directory of sustainable landscaping companies that use electric equipment instead of gas-burning tools, to help residents use quieter and healthier lawncare services.

For a more detailed discussion of the Noise Project’s opposition to the proposed leafblower ordinance amendment, please see “We cannot support PVD’s glacial leafblower regulations.”

Providence residents who want effective (not performative) regulation of gas leafblowers
should contact their Council member to ask them to amend the current ordinance as
detailed above, and “cc” the Noise Project’s info@ address on e-mail to Council members.

Leafblowers in RI

Several leafblower-related bills were introduced in the RI House and Senate in 2022, and members of the Noise Project’s leafblower committee chose to transition it into a state-wide organization called Quiet Clean Rhode Island, which is beyond the Project’s municipal scope. The two groups further diverged over the latter’s support for Providence’s abysmal 2025 leafblower ordinance.

In 2024, the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources launched a new $250,000 rebate-driven incentive program to encourage recalcitrant RI landscaping companies⁶ to transition from gas-fueled leafblowers to quieter and cleaner electric models, to improve public health and meet the greenhouse-gas emissions-reduction targets outlined in the state’s 2021 Act on Climate.

Landscapers can receive $1,000 or 50% of the cost of an electric leafblower (whichever is less) and related batteries. Eligible businesses located in municipalities with high asthma rates — including Central Falls, Pawtucket, Providence, Westerly, and Woonsocket — can receive an additional $250.⁷

In early 2026, ten members of the Rhode Island legislature introduced a bill that would preclude municipalities in the state from regulating gas-fueled leafblowers, presumably at the behest of the landscapers lobby. If it passes, it will render Providence’s 2025 leafblower ordinance null and void.

We urge Providence residents who want to reduce noise and other toxic air pollution from gas leafblowers sooner than 2033(!) to contact the City Council as a whole, their own Council member, and state policymakers (especially the House Municipal Government Committee) to tell them you support effective regulation of gas blowers — and they should too. Among the reasons you can cite:

You have ears and lungs — Excessive noise adversely affects people’s health, whether they’re aware of it or not. The sound levels produced by most gas-fueled leafblowers already violate Providence municipal code (and in some neighborhoods are among the most prevalent sources of noise), although residents and landscaping companies that use them are rarely cited for it. City officials cannot continue to ignore a long-standing and ongoing source of unhealthy and unnecessarily noise as loud lawncare equipment.
You care about public health and / or landscaping workers — Gas leafblowers produce noise and other combustion emissions such as particulates that are unhealthy for their operators and those living or working nearby. Most landscaping workers either don’t have proper masks or hearing protection, or aren’t sufficiently trained and vigilant in their use, and can suffer permanent health effects from their jobs. At minimum, these preventable, long-term effects increase state, local, and personal healthcare costs.
You live on the planet Earth — The emissions from inefficient two-stroke leafblower engines are disproportionately more damaging to the environment than car and truck exhausts. If we’re serious about addressing climate change and avoiding its worst effects, small-engine pollution must be curtailed, and other cities and states are already taking steps to do so.
You care about the quality of life in Providence — Supporting restrictions on gas leafblowers is an opportunity to communicate to the mayor and City Council that residents want more decisive action to reduce noise levels, which public officials have ignored for far too long.

If you’d like to show your support for state and / or local legislation to regulate gas leafblowers,
please add your pledge here. If you’d like to help the Noise Project address the adverse effects of
leafblowers, please complete our Volunteer form and select ‘Commercial noise’ as your interest.

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¹ In 1975, the small northern California community of Carmel — where Clint Eastwood was mayor for two years in the mid-1980s — became the first U.S. municipality to ban gas leafblowers. In 2024, California prohibited sales of all new two-stroke engines.

² A two-stroke, gas-burning leafblower emits 23 times the amount of carbon monoxide and nearly 300 times the amount of non-methane hydrocarbons as a pickup truck, which has a catalytic converter to reduce its combustion emissions. This disparity will only increase as more people switch to electric vehicles.

³ In an April 2021 newsletter, Councilmember Anthony cited leafblowers as one of the three top noise sources she receives the most complaints about. (The other two were fireworks and ATVs, which the city responded to with formal initiatives.)

⁴ Hapless as the enforcement provision is, the ordinance further requires the city to give those who violate it in the first year of restrictions on the public (i.e., not city employees / contractors) no less than three warnings before finally actually citing them — making the effective cost of violating the ordinance $25 per violation for the first four violations.

⁵ The industry standard for measuring leafblower noise is at a distance of 50 feet, but the density of houses in Providence means they are often used much closer to adjacent properties than that. Prohibiting leafblower use on Sundays would allow people to enjoy their homes and backyards for at least one day every weekend. And given that they’re used on fallen leaves, they’re not needed in summer or winter.

⁶ The program specifically excludes “residents, non-profit organizations, and government entities” from eligibility.

⁷ At the Federal level, Democrats in Congress introduced bills (House 6013 and Senate 4068) proposing a 40% tax credit to help small businesses transition to zero-emission landscaping equipment such as electric leafblowers, lawnmowers, hedgetrimmers, and accessories. The bills provided credits up to $25,000 annually and $100,000 over 10 consecutive years — retroactive to January 1, 2023. It remains to be seen if the bills are re-introduced in 2025, when Congress is narrowly controlled by Republicans.