THE LEAFLET

The fall foliage is so gorgeous. That is until it is a wet, slippery mess on your sidewalk and throughout your yard. What’s a D.C. citizen to do?

It’s easy! Rake your loose leaves into your tree box (or at the curb if there is no tree box) the Sunday before your scheduled collection week. Prevent fires, parking problems and flooding by placing leaves in the treebox space, not in the street. When it rains, leaves will clog storm drains causing flooding and polluting our waterways. No one wants that. Important note:  leaves only! Tree limbs, bricks, dirt, rocks, etc., will damage the equipment and delay collections. Also important: bagged leaves will not be collected and composted. Instead, they will only be picked up as trash as space in trash trucks permits.

Ok, but when’s your collection week? Every street will have at least two scheduled collection weeks. Department of Public Works (DPW) crews will only come once during each scheduled week. You can register to receive alerts (and reminders to rake your leaves into the right of way) for when DPW’s leaf collection crews will be coming through your neighborhood.

Better yet? You can track the progress of DPW’s leaf collection crews throughout the season and view before and after photos of our crews’ work.

Each year DPW collects and composts between five and seven thousand tons of loose leaves.

Stay tuned for information on the next compostable collection from DPW – Holiday trees!