Yard Waste Preparation Tips

How to Prepare Your Yard Waste Properly:

It’s that time of year again – cutting plants back, raking up leaves, and trimming your hedges one last time this season! We compiled a list of tips for you to keep in mind when preparing your yard waste to ensure it gets collected and disposed of properly.

1. No Plastic Bags – Do not place plastic bags INSIDE of your yard waste containers or brown paper yard waste bags. All yard waste trimmings should be placed loosely into these containers.
2. Container / Yard Waste Bag Weights – Please be mindful of how heavy the container is when placing yard waste into your containers and brown paper yard waste bags. When you smash down trimmings it can become severely compacted. This makes it difficult for our employees to lift the bags and containers. This may result in material getting stuck in the bottom of the yard waste containers. If you have to drag your containers and bags to the curb, they’re too heavy.
3. Bundles of Trimmings – Bundles of tree and bush trimmings should be no longer than 4 feet in length, no wider than a basketball, and branches may not exceed 6 inches in diameter. Bundles should also not weigh more than 30 pounds each. This ensures our employees can safely collect the material and it fits in our trucks. You can use any type of biodegradable twine to bundle your trimmings.
4. Thorns – Be mindful of any trimmings that have thorns on them. Please give our team members an easy and safe way to handle this material as thorn bushes are a major safety hazard for our employees. We encourage you not to bundle these items, but to place them inside of brown paper yard waste bags or to use a yard waste container so our employees have a safe way to pick them up and dump them in to the truck.
5. Leaves – Check with your local municipality to see if leaves are accepted as part of your yard waste collection. Some municipalities allow them and some do not.
6. Grass Clippings, Dirt, Stones, Tree Stumps, and Fruits & Vegetables – As always, the previously mentioned items should NOT be placed out for yard waste collection.