Loose leaf collection by the City of Greensboro appears to be dead.
At the City Council work session on yard waste, only City Councilmember Zack Matheny said that he was opposed to ending loose leaf collection.
It is said that you can prove anything with statistics, and the presentation on yard waste including loose leaf collection would be evidence of that.
One of the charts shows that over a 15-year period, the city would spend $3.7 million less on leaf collection if loose leaf collection was eliminated and leaf burritos and yard waste carts were used.
The 15-year period might seem odd unless you consider, as Deputy City Manager Chris Wilson informed the City Council, that the average life span of a yard waste cart is 15 years.
Wilson said that the plan is to use blue carts for recycling and brown carts for yard waste. Exactly how that switch would be made was not explained.
The yard waste bins or carts that the city is considering for the program are 96 gallons – slightly larger than the current garbage and recycling carts the city provides.
Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann, who lived in a townhome for years before moving to Well-Spring Community, asked if homeowners could be expected to get all their leaves in the city provided cart. Wilson said, “That’s somewhat debatable. In my yard I can get what I need to in a can.”
Whether or not to allow the use of a “leaf burrito,” which is a reusable zip up plastic bag, was debated by councilmembers.
However, it did appear that the majority of the City Council was in favor of allowing those who couldn’t get all of their yard waste into the city provided cart to use paper bags for additional yard waste, including leaves.
The City Council did seem to be in agreement that plastic bags would be eliminated and that the city would only pickup biodegradable paper bags, which according to Wilson cost on average 24 cents more each than plastic bags.
Councilmember Tammi Thurm asked if plastic bags could be outlawed this summer before the annual leaf season.
Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter has long been a supporter of eliminating loose leaf collection and said that if the city stopped collecting loose leaves, “The leaves won’t be going down the storm drains anymore.”
Perhaps someone should tell that to the trees.
I have a neighbor that had over 70 bags of leaves from his trees before he decided to rake the rest to the curb. He lives on a regular city lot but has several large trees on his property. There is no way he could get that into a container that only comes once a week.
But since they reduced picking up leaves from 4 x a year to 2 x a year, the leaves sit on the curbs for weeks before they get picked up. It is a pain to walk a dog around them and not get hit by the speeding cars in the neighborhood.
One dog we had found a dead bat in a pile of leaves on the curb!
So, who knows which will be better?
We solved our leaf problem. No more trees. That may be what everyone else decides to do, too.
What a dumb a$$ed short sighted idea got rid of trees because of a h leaves. Trees are a very important part of our eco system. Too many healthy trees are destroyed every day and people wonder about global warming. Good job genius
So greensboro (that does have an oak leaf in its logo) is anti leaves. Remove the trees, have a landscape of clay and ashault. Decrease our air quality, change the logo to have a can or dirt represent us. Change our name to “Brownsboro”. See how insanely this sounds? As equal to us hearing you want to remove a service you have structured and we have adapted to for decades. The cost for new cans in 2024 for all residence will be incredibly high. Does the city have this in the bank or will you raise our taxes again for this hair-raising idea. These cans full of leaves can’t be left at the curb or you will be fined. You have too many rules that interfere with normal living.
Another reason that this city council is in the dark and should be thrown out with the leaves. Just trying to make the taxpayer do the jobs that we pay taxes for. Like most of their brain dead ideas, this will cost us in the long run, and will pass money to a friend or donor.
There are a lot of ways either the paper bags or the 96 gallon cart would be an improvement on the current system in addition to being cheaper to operate. Waiting, with piles of leaves on your front curb for weeks for the pickup under the current system, can be a bummer. Only 2 pickups each fall insures that your leaves may sit there for a substantial time. Let’s try a new system.
How would a 96 gallon cart be an improvement? For those of us who have a lot of trees, one pickup a week would take the better part of a year to get all the leaves.
Don’t we pay taxes for this? This service is provided by the city, as there is no other way for bulk leaf disposal. The City is not in the business of making money (just giving it to the faithful). Leaf pickup is provided by the taxpayer.
This is absolutely outrageous. Leave it to the Socialists.
Another SNAFU by this clown council. I believe there are many other ways the city can “save” money. First eliminate 900k from Johnsons no results program and the host of other liberal tax wasting programs council dreams up. The tax give aways will continue with this bunch and they will be asking for more tax dollars ….to waste.
The use of clear plastic bags has been encourage by the city for decades, now you are going to use brown paper bags? who is going to pick up the yard waste when the brown paper bag fails due to wet weather? I am only going to pick it up once (when i do it the first time). It can stay on the city streets till it washes or blows away, but I am not picking it up twice due to the city idiot powers to be not understanding why plastic is better than paper. I am all for getting rid of the loose leaf collection program, now implement the right bag for the right job.
First they took away the glass, then they took away the leaves…by 2025 total trash pick up will end in Greensboro and they will still bill us for it and our taxes will be 30% higher…if you smell something, say something! Call your council dummies.
Me thinks this council save one has their heads up their arse.
I really seriously doubt that any of those on the city council actually rake up their own leaves, if they even have leaves to rake, so their input on this is really useless and shortsighted. Putting leaves in paper bags? Really? So, when the leaves are collected into paper bags, and it rains, and the paper bags fall apart, are the city employees still going to gather those leaves back together again? Councilmember Abuzuaiter made the prediction that if the city stops loose leaf collection, “The leaves won’t be going down the storm drains anymore.” If the city stops loose leaf collection, a lot of those leaves are not going to be raked together and will eventually blow out into the streets, and they will find their way into the storm drains.
I’m curious how older homeowners and those with physical issues are going to be able to handle getting their leaves into one 96 gal can instead of just raking or blowing them to the curb. Also how they (we) will be able to get a 96 gal can full of other much heavier yard waste to the curb…… brush, branches, limbs, weeds with heavy clay on the roots. A wheeled can that heavy will be nearly impossible to roll to the curb. The smaller 32 gal cans we use now for yard waste are often too heavy to move….. imagine a can three times that size full of the same heavy waste.
This plan will make a money for someone but will be a hardship on many residents.
Miller, I like your thinking.
Glen, another good thought play. Government people never think things through. I try to imagine the size of these “carts, cans” on the curbs. I think the leaves are a small problem compared to the cost –to the taxpayers of this boondoggle, or even the person who complains about walking his dog around the leaves. There’s much more to this than people realize.
Get to know your neighbors around shared issues.
I’m surprised no one on the dumbest town council in NC proposed letting homeowners burn their leaves on rainy days. At least the only thing going down the storm drains would be ashes.
In neighborhoods with maples and dogwood trees the “burrito” bags would probably work or the leaves could be put in the yard waste cans each week. Leaves do not fall all at once. Neighborhood’s with oak trees have an enormous amount of leaves.
We need a clear plan of what you intend to do.
If you save money doing this we need a tax cut.
Leaf problem solutions. Mulch the leaves for compost or redistributing to the soil. Give all residents a leaf mulcher. Do not collect leaves, don’t have leaves in the street. Leaves can be mulched throughout the fall, do not buy leaf cans, sell all leaf trucks, dont hire leaf collection labor,but provide a debri can for sticks. Keep leaves out of the landfill. Teach citizens to use leaf mulch for plant beds. This is better for the soil, trees, sewer, landfill, city cost.
Whatever cost they are discussing it pales in comparison to the advertising budget for the Performance Arts Palace downtown. Maybe the city could save some money by privatizing the Tanger center since it only serves the wealthiest folks in a 30 mile radius and does not serve an actual purpose of city government like waste removal and public safety which have been gutted by our Mandate Mayor and her grifting grifters.
I enjoy paying more taxes and getting less services while every bleeping pet project gets money. Or tax incentives if you are a developer who may not even be building in Greensboro. Or less police.
LOL…..Brown PAPER bags…..really. What happens if it rains? How will paper bags AND leaves work out in the storm drains? I totally agree there is a problem, but clearly, this is NOT the solution.
Dumbest plan ever. We have millions of trees- leaves are everywhere. If the city would just pick them up more frequently then bagging would not be necessary, and leaves would not be in the streets or sewers. The ONLY reason why this is up for discussion is because the huge increase in taxes we pay, for this service and many more have fallen by the wayside. City of Greensboro and our Democratic majority need to get your act together.
It looks as if the City wants everyone to cut their trees down – that would solve their problem. Perhaps we should put our leaves in the street and burn them in protest similar to what the French are doing in their protests. Wait until there are disputes over who has to get up the leaves when the leaves from a neighbor’s tree falls in your yard. The City likes to tax everything they can in order to hire more staff – perhaps they should place a tax on each tree on our property. That would more than pay for the Loose Leaf pickup! Or perhaps the proposed tax on prepared foods would raise enough money as well. More taxes equals Less Services and more funds for the City’s favorite projects – they care nothing about the average homeowner!
Lol. You poor folks in Greensboro. Gonna be tough on some homeowners who are elderly or have lots of oak trees. Doesn’t the logo for the city of Greensboro feature an oak leaf in the middle? Proud of the trees yes indeed
Our city counsel increases our taxes and wants to eliminate this city services who does this counsel truly represent?
What am I getting for my property tax?! Not much! Mostly feel good bs. $2600 for trash pick up is ridiculous. They’ll cancel that next. You think you live under the organic Constitution and OWN your property? Quit paying your property tax and see how long you can stay there! Permit slips to do what is right and good make you an entry level serf.
In 1996 I purchased a Troy-Bilt Chipper Vac for $1200+. It would suck up leaves, shred them and put them in a bag. It had a 12 to 1 reduction ratio. When I emptied the bag into a 39 gallon plastic bag it worked out perfectly – 39 gallons of leaves. So I would put the plastic bags on the curb and they would be picked up each week as part of the garbage pickup. I never really counted the bags, I knew I had a lot. So one year I kept track of the number of bags I put on the curb. It turned out to be 1144 bags. Now with a 12 to 1 reduction ratio that would equate to 13,728 bags of loose leaves. I am not sure how you put loose leaves in a burrito bag. But I am pretty certain you put them in a bucket with a pitch fork or something similar. So where do the leaves wait for their turn to go into the bucket? it would take 5577 buckets to contain the leaves. So if I got a pickup every week for 52 weeks. I would only need 107 buckets. Maybe I could get a combo of buckets, burrito bags and throw in a few taco bags. If you drive down Lake Brandt Road close to the fire station, you will see my leaves and my neighbors leaves on the curb. And yes we are cursed at a lot. I would vote to keep the leaf pickup as it is. Thank you.