Leaving your leaves where they fall will help nature

  Leaves have been banished from my neighborhood. If a few fall in a summer storm, landscaping crews blast them away in a din of noise and clouds of dust and air pollution. When the trees shed their leaves in the coming weeks, these crews will not only blow every leaf off every lawn but also out of every flower bed, making sure they don’t miss even one that’s hiding in the ivy or pachysandra.

But if you have a yard around your home, you are the master of your own small ecosystem. You can dare to leave the leaves. The choices you make — or let your landscaper make — can pollute our air, sicken the vulnerable, and kill pollinators in ways that go largely unspoken and unnoticed but nevertheless have a profound impact.

Fallen leaves are nature’s way of rebuilding the soil and ensuring the birth of the next generations of insects and the birds for whom they are food. They are part of the natural cycle, free fertilizer that returns carbon and minerals to the soil. Underneath layers of decayed leaves butterflies, moths, fireflies, bees and other invertebrates find the shelter they need to survive the winter. But instead of leaving the leaves among our shrubs and flowers, we take them away and replace them with wood mulch that we pay for. Unfortunately, many insects are unable to dig through wood mulch. Leaving the soil bare is even worse. Bare soil emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

We like to look at colorful autumn leaves, but once they fall, we see them as litter, a nuisance, a blemish, gripped by the belief that a proper outdoor landscape must be as neat and free of leaves as our indoors are free of dust.

When the blowers are in action, pity the children and adults who suffer from asthma and other lung conditions and the workers who use the blowers. The clouds of dust raised by leaf blowers include tiny particulates that can enter the lungs as well as toxic and carcinogenic pollutants. The American Respiratory Association has identified these dust clouds as hazardous to lung health.

All blowers, whether battery or gas-powered, create these dangerous clouds of dust. But gas blowers are as loud as a jackhammer breaking pavement and can deafen workers. Their inefficient motors produce as much pollution in an hour as 15 cars driving in your neighborhood for an hour. California has banned the sale of all gasoline-powered lawn equipment because they produce as much smog as all the light duty cars in the state.

Some Long Island communities, like Southampton and Greenport villages, have banned or are moving to ban gas leaf blowers. The Huntington Town board is considering a ban on gas leaf blowers on residential properties. A handful of other municipalities have partial bans. Battery blowers are quieter and less polluting, but they still create clouds of dangerous particles and can still be used to remove every leaf — if we let them.

And that’s the point. It’s up to us. We can dare to leave the leaves in our flower and shrub beds. That’s what we do at my home, and I treasure every butterfly and bee and firefly that lives in my yard. Take control. Changing your yard practices might just be the easiest way to fight climate change and support our local ecosystem.

This guest essay reflects the views of Frances Cerra Whittelsey, a former reporter for The New York Times and Newsday and currently climate justice chair at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Huntington.