Author: Dianne DeLongchamps
How much air pollution does gas lawn equipment actually create in Northern Colorado?
More than its size suggests. The CoPIRG Foundation’s 2022 report says lawn and garden equipment accounts for an estimated 2.5 parts per billion of the Front Range’s ozone pollution, compared with 6.8 parts per billion from all of the region’s on-road vehicles. Fort Collins sits inside that region’s ozone nonattainment area.
I see a real air quality problem in Northern Colorado, and the solar-powered, electric equipment was part of why I loved the Clean Air Lawn Care name. Luke DeLongchamps, who runs field work in Fort Collins, says the most common reaction from new customers is pleasant surprise at how much quieter the equipment is and how little engine fume there is.
We checked for a more recent version of this research before publishing this post. As of now, the 2022 report is still the most current study of its kind, so every figure below is dated to that report on purpose.
At Clean Air Lawn Care, our own equipment is electric, charged in part by solar. The electric equipment is part of the Clean Air Lawn Care franchise standard, and it is part of what we liked about the company.
What’s actually in that exhaust
A national paper by Jamie Banks of Quiet Communities and Robert McConnell of EPA Region 1, published on EPA’s website, put numbers on it using 2011 estimates. It found lawn and garden equipment produced approximately 26.7 million tons of pollutants a year, including nearly 5.8 million tons of carbon monoxide, 68,500 tons of nitrogen oxides, and about 20,700 tons of PM10 particles, of which 19,000 tons were fine particulate matter (PM2.5). That analysis is now more than a decade old, and all of it except the paper’s 2018 projections represents 2011 estimates.
The researchers found landscape maintenance equipment accounted for 43% of volatile organic compounds and around 50% of fine particulate matter from the broader lawn and garden category. Close to 90% of the fine particulate matter from landscape maintenance equipment came from two-stroke engines, the small engines common in trimmers and blowers.
What this means along the Front Range
CoPIRG’s 2022 report, “Small Machines, Big Pollution,” says Denver ranked seventh worst in the country for ozone pollution and Fort Collins ranked 18th, according to the American Lung Association’s 2022 “State of the Air” report. It also says Front Range residents suffered through a total of 232 Ozone Action Day alerts over the past five ozone seasons. The City of Fort Collins says on its ozone page that Fort Collins lies within an ozone nonattainment area, the Denver Metro/North Front Range area, which is currently classified as “severe.” The city says EPA made that designation in late 2007.
How much of the ozone problem that is
CoPIRG’s Dec. 1, 2022 news release says the 2.5 parts per billion from lawn and garden equipment is nearly one-fifth of the reduction the region needs. To meet EPA’s health-based air quality standards, it says, the Front Range must bring ozone down from a high of approximately 84 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion.
Colorado’s new rule, and who it actually covers
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment lists Regulation 29 among its lawn and garden equipment requirements. As of June 1, 2025, local and federal agencies within the ozone nonattainment area, and the lawn and garden contractors who work for them, cannot use gasoline-powered push and handheld lawn and garden equipment under 7 kilowatts (10 horsepower) from June 1 to Aug. 31 each year. State agencies, including higher education institutions and state contractors, face a similar rule statewide, for internal combustion engines smaller than 19 kilowatts (25 horsepower).
That’s the actual scope today: government agencies and their contractors, not private treatment companies like ours or homeowners. CDPHE says the Air Quality Control Commission will consider in November 2026 whether to expand the summertime restrictions to commercial lawn and garden equipment. CDPHE also says that, without regulation, gas-powered lawn and garden equipment could produce 36 tons of volatile organic compounds per day and 7.5 tons of nitrogen oxides per day in 2026, about 11% of ozone-forming emissions in the northern Front Range.
The leaf blower comparison you may have heard
CoPIRG’s report says a 2021 fact sheet from the California Air Resources Board estimated that operating the best-selling commercial leaf blower for just one hour produces emissions equal to driving 1,100 miles, roughly the distance from Denver to Calgary, Canada. CoPIRG also notes that many gas-powered lawn and garden models use two-stroke engines, which mix oil with fuel and produce pollutants such as particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, and potentially carcinogenic hydrocarbons.
Once you have read what is actually coming out of a small gas engine, it is hard to see your own yard the same way. Northern Colorado has an air quality problem, and we would rather do our part to help with it.
Clean Air Lawn Care Northern Colorado is owned by Dianne, Paul, and Luke DeLongchamps — a family business serving Fort Collins, Windsor, and Timnath with organic lawn treatments and solar-powered electric equipment.
