Democratic din: voters to decide fate of leaf blowers in Zurich

If the referendum is accepted, petrol-powered leaf blowers will be banned in Zurich year-round, while the use of electric versions will be restricted to Autumn. Keystone

Switzerland’s biggest city will vote on strict new rules for leaf blowers on September 28. Has democracy become decadent – or is all the noise justified?

If there’s one thing to rival the noise of leaf blowers, it’s surely the noise of people fighting about them. From op-eds to Reddit channels, the tools are attacked (for their loudness and impact on the environment) and defended (for their time-saving utility) to an almost impressive degree. For one writer in the Wall Street Journal, leaf blowers are “evil incarnateExternal link”; for the actor Cate BlanchettExternal link, they are a “metaphor for what’s wrong with us as a species”.

Meanwhile in Switzerland, “the world’s most notorious power tool” (Washington Post) has now become political. On September 28, voters in Zurich will decide on a new lawExternal link: if they accept it, petrol-powered leaf blowers and vacuums will be banned in the city year-round, while the use of electric versions will be restricted to the leafiest months, i.e. October to December – unless an exception is granted in advance.

How did it come to this? The arguments of the anti-leaf-blower lot are the usual ones: the tools are too loud, they swirl up dust and bacteria and “other dangerous particles”, they harm biodiversity, and they are increasingly used not just to blow away leaves – as their designers intended – but also things like rubbish. As for the gas-powered variants, they burn fossil fuels for tasks for which, in the opinion of the Green Party, “brushes and rakes” would suffice.

More than just quirky?

And so, the issue took the usual methodical Swiss political course: left-wing politicians in Zurich city parliament proposed a ban in 2022; the government drafted a legal text; it was debated, amended and approved in early 2025 – and right-wing parties duly launched a referendum to give citizens the last word. At a city level, in short, it is the same type of procedure that has enabled nationwide votes on other unlikely issues in the past, from absinthe to cow horns.

Yet things are not so simple. During debates in the city parliament, for example, a right-wing opponent of the law brandished an electric leaf blower in the middle of the chamber, drawing comparisons to chainsaw-wielding Argentinian president, Javier Milei. Live comparisonsExternal link between hairdryers and leaf blowers have also been seen. Ultimately the vote has sparked a degree of media interest unusual for city-level issues, with journalists quick to jump on not just the quirky potential, but also the wider significance of the “leaf blower wars”, as Le Temps called it.

For the correspondent of the French newspaper Le Monde, for instance, the vote is a small battle in the global “culture wars” between a well-meaning urban left and its “anti-woke” counter-reaction. Zurich – a “useful seismograph of small Swiss tremors” – has been governed by the left for decades, Le Monde’s man in Switzerland reportsExternal link; is the right now getting its revenge via referendums like this one?

To illustrate this, he quotes the editor-in-chief of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) paper, who has lumpedExternal link leaf-blowers together with meat-eating and car-driving as the targets of an “ever-denser web of rules, bans, expectations and authoritarian recommendations” handed down by city authorities. The Zurich trade association sees things similarly: in its opposition to the law, it complains of a “rampant culture of prohibition” which is “hostile to business”. Tabloid Blick even listedExternal link the law as a prime example of what separates urban and rural sensibilities in Switzerland.

A regulation to restrict leaf blowers, wrote Blick – “typical Zurich, right?”

Not an outlier

Yet whether the whole affair amounts to “one of the most absurd controversies” in Zurich, as the NZZ recently headlined, is difficult to say.

Supporters of the regulations are quick to point out that Zurich’s leaf blower strategy doesn’t make it an outlier. The second-largest Swiss city, Geneva, already has similar rulesExternal link in place. In the US, over 100 cities have banned or restricted gas-powered leaf blowers; California has scrapped all gas-powered lawn equipment outright. Direct votes, albeit on a smaller scale, also aren’t unheard of: in March 2025, voters in Winter Park, Florida (population: 30,000) overturned a law banning leaf blowers.

Meanwhile the issue of noise isn’t a minor one either. Switzerland is not known for being a loud place (the Daily Mail even once – falsely – claimedExternal link that you aren’t allowed to flush your toilet here after 10pm). But it’s not all peaceful Alpine valleys. A 2020 study found that a million people in the country suffered from harmful noise pollution close to their homes. Numbers complaining about noise – especially traffic – are risingExternal link, and the health risks are “massively underestimated”, one expert told Swiss public radio, SRF, last year. Things like noise-reducing tarmac and rules against souped-up cars are increasing.

A noisy history

It’s also not the first time that a popular votes about turning down the volume has been held in Switzerland – and neither is it the first time such a vote has touched on wider political issues.

In 2023, for example, new residents in the Bernese town of Aarwangen complainedExternal link about cowbells keeping them awake at night. In response, citizens promptly approved a law recognising the historical and traditional presence of cowbells (and church bells) in the locality – “both by day and by night”. The case was widely seenExternal link as symbolic of how some rural areas are struggling to redefine their identity as they expand and urbanise.

At the national level, a 2008 vote asked whether noisy army fighter jets – a recurring source of bother in Switzerland – should be banned from flying over tourist areas. The idea was rejected, but a post-vote analysisExternal link showed that the main factor behind people’s choices was not noise as such, but rather their general position on the Swiss army. The ballot also sparked controversy when it turned out other interests were in play: Franz Weber, whose foundation launched the initiative, owned a hotel in the tourist town of Meiringen – next to a military airbase.

More recently, fireworks have come into the crosshairs of direct democracy. After a people’s initiative was handed in last year calling prohibit the sale of loud rockets and bangers, voters will have their say on the issue in the coming years; parliament is currently debating the issue. Surveys have shown strong public support for a ban.

Zeitgeist votes

In Zurich, however, where there haven’t been opinion polls ahead of the September 28 vote, it’s not clear how citizens will vote. The city leans left – hence the make-up of its government, and the gripes of the NZZ. But this isn’t always a crystal-clear indicator for how direct democratic ballots will swing. In a November 2024 referendum on another clear “culture war” issue, the result went in the authorities’ favour, but it wasn’t a landslide: 57% of citizens agreed to keep using gender-neutral language in official communications.

Edited by Marc Leutenegger/ts