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The City of Portland and Multnomah County developed this ordinance, which will help Portland transition away from gas leaf blowers to electric leaf blowers.
What Portlanders need to know
- When does the policy take effect? In 2026 and 2027, gas leaf blowers will be permitted from October through December. In 2028, gas leaf blowers will be banned year-round.
- Can I use an electric leaf blower? Electric leaf blowers are permitted all year-round.
- Who does this policy apply to? The policy applies to all property owners in Portland. This means that a property owner must ensure that any contractor or property manager they hire does not use gas leaf blowers.
- Why doesn’t the full ban go into effect until 2028? At the time the policy was passed, electric leaf blowers were not powerful enough to handle peak wet leaf season. This is especially true for large commercial property owners that rely on leaf blowers to keep walkways clear for safety. The phased approach gives time for electric leaf blower technology to improve.
- What about noise? All leaf blowers, whether gas or electric, must comply with the Noise Code. You can submit noise complaints online.
Health impacts, environmental justice, and equity
Electrification of lawn equipment provides health benefits to leaf blower operators and residents by reducing noise and air pollution. Gas leaf blowers may be a nuisance to neighbors, but their negative health impacts are disproportionately felt by landscape workers and other GLB operators. With 46% of landscape workers nationally identifying as Latino, this ordinance is vital to address the equity and environmental justice impacts that disproportionately affect workers of color.
Gas leaf blowers are widely known to emit unhealthy levels of noise and air pollution. Gas leaf blowers produce low frequency noise that can lead to negative health outcomes such as stroke, high blood pressure, heart attack, tinnitus and hearing impairment. The higher frequency noise created by electric leaf blowers has less severe health impacts on users compared to GLBs.
Gas leaf blowers also emit significant amounts of air pollution. A recent study demonstrated that running a GLB for just one hour produces the same level of pollution as driving a midsize sedan 1,100 miles – the equivalent of Portland to San Diego. Exhaust from GLBs also poses significant health risks to operators and the public, including stroke, cardiovascular and respiratory disease, cancer, neurological conditions and prenatal development issues.
Policy background
The policy originated in 2018 when Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson and City of Portland Commissioner Nick Fish began exploring a policy to phase out GLBs in our community. Since then, local government leaders have continued to pave the way to develop a policy that can equitably phase out the use of GLBs within city limits.
This ordinance was shaped by input from the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Public comment was open January 17-31, 2024, and the ordinance was passed by Portland City Council on Wednesday, March 13, 2024.
View the code
This ordinance amended Title 17 in effort to phase out the use of gas handheld or backpack leaf blowers on public and private property within Portland city limits.