Why Does This Hollywood Celebrity Hate Leaf Blowers?

In a competition to determine the most mundane yard work a homeowner must do to upkeep their lawn, collecting leaves in the fall is up there fighting for the top spot. However, the task isn’t so mundane if you ask Indiana Jones and Thor: Ragnarok star Cate Blanchett. In fact, it’s the source of a decades-long grievance. See, Blanchett has some beef with one particular power tool homeowners use to take care of their falling leaves: leaf blowers. It’s not often we turn to Hollywood A-listers for their takes on lawn care, but this one is worth a listen.

Appearing in a March episode of the Subway Takes podcast with Kareem Rahma to promote her latest movie, Black Bag, the Oscar-winning actress filled listeners in on her hottest take, passionately explaining, “Leaf blowers need to be eradicated from the face of the Earth.” She continued: “The stupidity! Here’s the thing: It’s a metaphor for what’s wrong with us as a species. We blow shit from one side of our lawn to the other side, and then the wind is just gonna blow it back.”

One might argue that leaf blowers’ biggest benefit is the time it saves. It takes far longer (and more effort) to manually rake leaves than to blow them in the desired direction. However, that point probably would not move Blanchett, who claimed 30 minutes of leaf blower usage creates more pollution than driving a pickup truck from Texas to Alaska, which led to them getting banned in Washington, D.C. And clearly Blanchett does her research— that stat checks out according to a 2011 Edmunds study on leaf blower emissions.

Blanchett has been singing the same tune for well over a decade. Her well-documented hatred of leaf blowers dates back to 2007, when she first told W Magazine that leaf blowers “sum up everything that is wrong with the human race.” So, while you may disagree with her take on leaf blowers, you have to give her props for her consistency and passion. Watch her rage against leaf blowers in her “Subway Takes” segment below.

@subwaytakes Episode 310: Leaf blowers need to be eradicated from the face of the earth!! Feat Cate Blanchett 🚋🚋🚋🚋🚋 Hosted by @KAREEM RAHMA Created by Kareem Rahma and Andrew Kuo Shot by @Anthony DiMieri and Thomas Kasem Edited by Tyler Christie Associate producer @Ramy #podcast #subway #hottakes #subwaytakes #interview #nyc #opinions #cateblanchett #movies #films #leafblowers ♬ original sound – SubwayTakes

Sources

Edmunds: Leaf Blower’s Emissions Dirtier than High-Performance Pick-Up Truck’s, Says Edmunds’ InsideLine.com (2011)

W Magazine: “Queen Cate” (2007)