No bags for city leaf pick-up

Staff Writer

EASLEY - "All the leaves are brown... and the sky is gray."

Famous song lyrics maybe, but in Easley, that means the trees

are giving up their colorful foliage for the coming winter.

It also means that homeowners are giving up their weekends

raking messy piles of sticky leaves in a sometimes futile effort to

keep their yards tidy.

But thanks to Easley sanitation workers - as of Monday, Nov.

5 - those piles are now being picked up on a weekly basis.

"Right now, leaves are every week, but as volume increases,

our time will slow down," said Solid Waste and Recycling

Supervisor Brent Jennings. "The keyword here is 'patience.'"

And save your trash bags for, well, trash.

"There should be no yard debris in any bags, or it will not get

picked up," Jennings said.

He's got the law behind him. The city passed an ordinance

last month forbidding the use of bags in yard waste, including

leaves, brush and limbs.

Residents received notice of the change in their most recent

Easley Combined Utilities bills and anyone violating the new

ordinance since then has received a reminder.

"But the grace period expires Nov. 15," Jennings said. "We

have to stop, check it out; if it's got yard debris in it, we'll leave it

there."

The leaf truck consists of a large vacuum hose that sucks

leaves into the back of the truck. Limbs or other debris only

serves to jam and disable the truck which leads to further delays

in leaf service throughout the season.

While there may be no hard-and-fast penalty for violating the

no-bag ordinance, Jennings said everyone pays in the long run.

"Do not mix leaves with brush and vice versa," Jennings said.

"They need to be in two separate piles. Otherwise, it delays the

pick-up of your leaves because the boom truck has to come get it

instead of the vacuum."

For the most recent leaf-truck schedule beginning in

December is invited to call the hotline at 855-7929, ext. 7307.

Don't want to wait for the leaf truck to make its rounds or

just hate to watch your neat piles get blown all over your yard by

the wind?

"If you are adamant about using bags, just take them to a

county convenience center or the landfill," Jennings said.

But there are a couple of more environmentally friendly

options, he said.

"Composting and homemade mulching saves landfill space

and helps prevent residents from using industrial fertilizers,"

Jennings said.

Residents can purchase a mulching kit for their lawn mowers

at local lawn and garden centers, he said.

'It grinds the leaves into a powder and puts those rich

nutrients back into the soil," he said.

For more information about the new yard waste ordinance or

other solid waste and recycling questions, call 855-7916, ext.

7302.