What to do with those lovely leaves once they’re on the ground

Autumn leaves are gorgeous on trees and look lovely as they fall. They can be a pain to rake, but fresh piles just beg kids to jump into them. (Of course, then they need to be raked again.)

Once the fun is done, the leaves keep city crews busy. According to the city of Modesto’s website, crews during December will pick up only leaves and not any other green waste (prunings, trimmings, sticks, branches, etc.). Leaf collection crews work daily, “moving as quickly as possible so they can service more neighborhoods throughout the city,” says the site, which also lists restrictions:

Among them:

• Use the your organic (green) can as much as possible. It holds 96 gallons, is emptied once a week, and prevents leaves from washing into storm drains. Fill the can first before placing leaves in the street.
• Leaves will be collected from the street only. There are no alley pickups in December.
  
  
• Leaves must be piled 18 inches away from the curb to allow rain to pass through to the storm drains.
  
  
• The street sweeper cannot pickup piles of leaves. Once the crew has come down your street to collect leaves, do not rake or sweep leaves and remaining debris into a pile until after the street sweeper has passed by. If you sweep up small debris left after street collection, put it into your organic can.