Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an assessment of the potential impact of petrol leaf blowers on the environment.

When conducting our annual assessment of air pollutant emissions, we include petrol powered leaf blowers in the “Residential: Household and gardening (mobile)” category (regardless of whether they are used in a residential setting or not). Our latest assessment (National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory 2021) is that in 2021, this sector, which also includes petrol-powered lawn mowers, chainsaws etc, contributed a total of 3.5 tonnes of PM2.5 (0.004% of the UK total of 83.2 kilotons) and 328.8 tonnes of NO2 (0.05% of the UK total of 677.1 kilotons).

Leaf blowers are an important tool for many in the landscaping and horticultural trades. As we continue our transition towards Net Zero we will look at ways to encourage a switch to non-fossil fuelled machinery, including mains and battery powered landscaping and horticultural equipment such as leaf blowers.

The Noise Emission in the Environment by Equipment for use Outdoors Regulations 2001 regulate certain types of outdoor machinery to control the noise they produce, in order to reduce environmental impact, particularly in urban areas. The regulations list all the equipment they apply to, which includes leaf blowers, and set permissible sound power levels that must not be exceeded.