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WPCNR NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS. By John F. Bailey. August 28, 2009: If you employ a landscaping service to maintain your property, collection and removal of leaves from your property will not change this year. Landcaping crews will be permitted under the
The New White Plains Leaf Bag Demonstrated by John Bailey.
Residents “Who Bag Their Own,” who collect their own leaves this fall will be expected to scoop and deposit their leaves into these bags this fall. Yard Service firms will still be allowed to collect leaves loosely and deposit them at the Gedney Dump. The New City Leaf Policy ends decades of an automatic service residents have taken for granted.
The New City Leaf Policy Explained.
Commissioner of Public Works, Joseph Nicoletti. July 2009.
If you take care of your own yard, you will be responsible for collecting your leaves and stuffing them into a 40-gallon paper bag or bags and leaving the bags for a once-a-week pickup by a sharply curtailed city leaf collection squad. No leaves are allowed to be left in piles in city streets this year. It was not clear whether there would be a penalty for non-compliance with the new White Plains leaf-bagging policy. The policy change was touted by Commissioner of Public Works Joseph Nicoletti as contributing $1.1 Million in savings for the city this fiscal year, made possible by layoffs of ten salaried workers and an unspecified number of part-time workers.
According to Commissioner of Public Works, Joseph Nicoletti, in an interview with WPCNR Wednesday, ten city public works employees have been terminated and part-time workers employed in the intensive leaf collection of the past have also been eliminated. However, a list of actual workers terminated from the DPW was requested by WPCNR of the Mayor’s Office, and we await this list.
A list of positions and salaries terminated by other departments city wide though requested repeatedly by WPCNR, for months has not been made public by the Mayor’s Office. Nicoletti said that the ending of the city’s collection of piles of leaves curbside will save the city $1 Million over leaf collection last year, and $100,000 in overtime saved in weekend and holiday leaf pickup in November and December when trucks would previously be converted for snow removal.
Nicoletti said the 10 workers laid off are those assigned to the rake-and-sweep crews in the past. They operated leaf-pick up equipment which previously included a massive truck with a claw to lift piles of leaves into trucks, vacuum trucks to clear drains and suck leaves into collection trucks, and street-sweeper trucks. These leaf task forces will not be in action this fall.
Instead, if you are well-to-do and employ a professional grounds landscaping service to cut your lawn and collect your leaves, those services can continue as they have in the past.
The professional, though, in order to use the City Dump to dispose of the leaves, needs to purchase a coupon book from the Department of Public Works for $750 which buys them 20 visits to the city dump to deposit loose leaves. No longer will landscape teams be able to simply dump leaves in the street awaiting city pickup. The Coupon Book policy is not new and has been in effect many years, Nicoletti said.
The Leaf Bags
If you take care of your own yard, the city is making available paper, biodegradable leaf bags that property owners have to put their yard leaves into, in order for the city to collect them. Those bags, according to Nicoletti, will be available at the Gedney Landfill for purchase for 50 cents a bag in packs of 10 bags. The city purchased 10,000 bags through a
Nicoletti said filled bags should be left within the boundary of a resident’s property and not placed in the street. City crews would begin picking up the leaf bags October 13. He advised mulching the leaves with a lawnmower to fit the most leaves into each bag. He had no estimate as to how many bags were needed per size of lot.
Asked if the new City Leaf Bags were waterproof, Nicoletti said “Yes and No,” that the bags were biodegradable, but were sturdy enough to resist deterioration from rain. Nicoletti added that the once or twice a week leaf collections would prevent the bags from being left at the mercy of the elements.
The bags have been delivered to the Highway Department and are now on pallets. They will be available for purchase the first two weeks of September by private citizens only.
