The Naples Songbird a message from your publisher Reg Buxton

The Naples songbird that we all hear starting early in the morning and continuing until the afternoon has an ear-piercing damaging sound. You say, “What are you talking about?” I’m talking about the gasoline “two-stroke engine” that powers the lawn blowers, a piece of obsolete machinery that is used everywhere in our City.

Is there a better way to do this job?
My answer is, yes, I think so.

Let’s look at some reasons to make that change. Nature Communications in a 2014 study found that a variety of carbon gases that can produce smog and harm humans were on average 124 times higher from an idling two stroke engine than from a truck or car.

BENZENE, a carcinogenic pollutant found in each cubic meter of exhaust from the same idling two stroke engine contains 60,000 times the safe level of exposure. Studies have shown low frequency noise has great penetrating power. It can travel through walls, barriers and many kinds of protective hearing devices.

One acoustic study showed that in a densely populated neighborhood, a gas-powered blower rated at 75 decibels of noise can affect up to 15 times as many houses as a battery powered blower with the same 75 decibel rating.

As I spend time around our City, a friendly cup of coffee in the morning with friends or talking over lunch, the noise created by the “Naples Songbird” comes up more than occasionally.

The items referenced in this article originated in an article written by James Fallows in the April issue of Atlantic Magazine. It is well worth reading and sets forth a solution to a problem that affects citizens just like
you and me.

This column was first run in April of 2019 and has become prescient in light of a recent senate bill. Florida Senate bill SB290 prevents communities and municipalities from adopting or enforcing local rules that restrict or ban gas-powered farm or landscape equipment- including gas-powered leaf-blowers