Every fall, beautiful red, yellow, and orange leaves become a big outdoor clean up project for many families. Rakes, leaf blowers, tarps, plastic bags, and brown paper kraft bags are the tools of the trade for leaf warriors. Depending on how many deciduous trees you have in your neighborhood, raking, piling, bagging, and dragging leaves can take hours!

Composting yard waste saves space in landfills and can help reduce overall methane gas produced in landfills. Many local governments require that leaves be picked up as yard waste by trash disposal companies. The leaves are taken to a facility and are turned into mulch along with other yard debris, like grass clippings, small sticks and branches.

If you have room in a corner of your yard, pile the leaves and leave them there for
a couple of years! Over time, the pile will become compact and you’ll
have leaf mold, which can provide nutrients to the soil in your garden.

Do you help your family or neighbors with yard clean up? Do you stuff your leaves into plastic bags or do you use brown paper kraft bags as they do in Canada? Or do you haul your leaves to the curb to wait for the big vacuum truck to suck them up on recycle day?

Get some tips from the EPA’s Create Your Own Compost Pile.

Photograph by Photo Library