Trash Lady again............Sorry, another long post. If leaf issues aren't
your "interest", just delete.... (whew, bad pun avoided!)
I understand the desire to sweep leaves into the streets. There are some
cities that even successfully collect leaves this way. However, we in
Minneapolis have a couple of logistical details that have hampered us being
able to do that:
1. Communications. We try to do good things, but we do not always get
our messages out when we should--or want to, and our messages are not always
received, and if received, not always acted upon. For instance, some of you
may be receiving your Fall SW & R newsletter "late"--after the official last
day of YW collections in your area. We thought the letter would be in your
hands two weeks ago. It wasn't. I have some very angry customers. Another
example is the snow emergency policies. We try very hard to make sure that
everybody knows when and where to park, but we end up towing several
thousand cars during snow emergencies. We end up towing lots and lots of
cars during the fall leaf sweep, and we physically post those areas the day
before. Language barriers exist, and the turnover in some neighborhoods
prevents formation of a year-after-year routine that some places use to
shape behaviors by their residents. Not everyone receives, or deals with,
the messages that we put out. We can not keep going back to catch a couple
of residents' leaves in the streets, and I would still have to run yard
waste routes to handle everyone that didn't make the street scene, or that
had fall brush and garden debris that would not belong in the streets.
2. Lead time. In order to give everyone "enough" lead time to be sure
to schedule their life to rake their leaves on the proper day, we would need
to get that information out at least two weeks to a month ahead of time.
We could probably put together a plan to do so in a phased way through the
city---assuming that folks would be OK with not having all their leaves
"down" on their scheduled day---but then Mother Nature and the God of
Equipment Failures come into play. If for any reason we are delayed or
prevented from meeting the published schedule, we run the risk of angering
customers, and, worse, having a street full of leaves blowing about or
trying to wash themselves down the storm drains. Either of these is not a
good outcome.
3. Front yard/back yard. If collection were happening in the streets,
I guarantee that all of MY leaves would be in the back yard--it's the
Universal Perversity of Matter. I was in error yesterday, we do not do a
fall sweep in the alleys.
4. Risk/reward. The risks of "missing" leaves--either through vagaries
of Mother Nature or through human error are huge--it's not just the
untidiness, OR the blowing around, OR the accidents on slippery roads if the
leaves get wet OR the water pollution, OR the flooded intersections, OR the
difficulty of snow plowing OR any of the other reasons that we get leaves
off the streets; its the combination of any and all of them (See Universal
Perversity of Matter, above). These are not acceptable risks, when your
mission is the protection of Public Health and Safety (Honest, that's what
we, in Public Works, are all about).
5. Cost effectiveness. Yes, I worry about this a great deal. It is
truly more cost effective to just sweep the leaves that fall into the
streets (that's what our program is designed to do), and have the persons
that want to compost, compost, and have the persons that need to have leaves
taken away, use my service. I take all the leaves to NRG (was SKB) for
composting--they are incorporating them into their composting programs
(including food waste composting) . Leaves are very high Carbon:nitrogen
things, with lots of lignin's and other indigestibles, and are much more
difficult to compost than grass clippings, for example. People with lots of
lovely trees, or even a couple of big trees on a small lot, can easily end
up with more leaves than they can compost. I also end up with the opposite
problem--people that want more leaves to compost or mulch with than their
trees provide. I am in debt to these "Leaf Elves" who trundle up and down
alleys, collecting bags of leaves. The total tonnage of plastic bags is
very low, and all the leftover bags go to HERC or Elk River to be converted
into electricity.
That's the bulk of today's Trashy Tidbit! If you want more detail, or have
ideas on how to do better (I got a GREAT one yesterday!), please call or
e-mail. Thanks for the indulgence!
