Fall Leaf Collections and Pumpkin Composting in Boulder County
DID YOU KNOW? Composting your leaves and pumpkins is one of the easiest things you can do to fight climate change! Leaves, pumpkins and other organic materials, when tossed in a landfill, produce methane, a greenhouse gas 72 times more powerful than carbon dioxide in the short term. By turning your leaves and pumpkins into compost, rich nutrients are placed back into the soil for future growing seasons.
Learn more about the climate, environmental and economic benefits of composting.
ALSO: Learn how to use leaves as mulch to protect your yard and garden, or compost them in your backyard bin, through your curbside collection program or by dropping them off at a local leaf collection site.
Click on the name of your town for collection dates and locations
Boulder & Boulder County
Leaves and pumpkins can be placed in curbside composting bins. Learn what else you can compost at the curb.
Pumpkins are accepted in the compost drop-off at the Eco-Cycle/City of Boulder CHaRM: Center for Hard-to-Recycle Materials. Fees may apply. See details.
Residents can bring leaves or branches to the Boulder County and City of Boulder Yard Waste Drop-off Center, 5880 Butte Mill Road, from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday until Nov. 24. Starting Dec. 1, the center will close at 2 p.m.
Lafayette
Residents can drop leaves and pumpkins at the City Service Center, 1700 Avalon Ave. in Lafayette for FREE:
Monday, Oct. 1 - Friday, Nov. 30
Monday - Friday: 7:00 am - 3:30 pm
Saturday Dates: Oct. 13 and 27, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
No tree branches accepted. Please, no plastic bags. Will open again after Christmas for trees.
Click here for more information.
Longmont
The City of Longmont provides residents with three ways to dispose of leaves from residential properties:
1) Special curbside collection (once per year)
2) Free leaf bags (up to 15 per year)
3) Year-round drop off at the City's Waste Diversion Center (open six days a week)
SPECIAL CURBSIDE COLLECTION
Public Works Solid Waste Operations helps residents dispose of their leaves at no additional charge. Residents may place leaves, bagged in paper or plastic, curbside during the designated special collection week.
Leaf bags placed curbside after this special collection will not be collected by the city and the homeowner will be responsible for the disposal.
The City will make only one pass through every neighborhood street beginning Monday, November 5, 2012 so residents will need to know their schedule and fill leaf bags in advance. To make sure you don not miss the collection, you must place your bags at the curbside before 7:00 am on the Monday of your scheduled collection week (click here for the schedule). The leaf bags will be picked up one day during that collection week. For more information please call our Call Center at 303-651-8416 or visit on the web at www.ci.longmont.co.us/solidwaste.
The City of Longmont features special curbside bagged leaf collections from Nov 5 – 30. Residents must place their leaves - bagged in paper or plastic - out at the curb by 7 a.m. on the Monday morning of the week of their collection. Click here for collection schedules.
LEAF BAGS AVAILABLE FREE OF CHARGE
Residents may receive up to 15 compostable leaf bags (per year). Leaf bags are available at the Longmont Waste Diversion Center: Just drive up to the attendant's window and present your City of Longmont utility bill indicating you are a city trash and recycling customer. There are a limited number of bags available.
DROP-OFF LOCATION OPEN SIX DAYS A WEEK - FREE OF CHARGE TO RESIDENTS
Residents may dispose of bagged or loose leaves at the Longmont Waste Diversion Center year round, free of charge. Bring your City of Longmont utility bill indicating you are a city trash and recycling customer, to the window attendant and you can drop off your leaves. Non-residents and contractors must pay a fee. The Longmont Waste Diversion Center is open Monday - Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. - 4:45 p.m., and Thursday - Saturday from 8:30 am - 5:45 pm, (closed on Sundays and Holidays). For more information, call the City of Longmont at 303-651-8416 or Eco-Cycle at 303-444-6634.
Louisville
Leaves and pumpkins can be included in curbside compost bins. Learn what else you can compost at the curb. All materials must fit inside the bin. If you have additional materials, please bring them to a leaf drop-off site.
Collections will occur from November 5 - November 25.
Click here for a map of Leaf Drop-off Locations and more information.
1. Wastewater Treatment Plant: 1601 Empire Road, open daily, 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM
2. Warembourg Fishing Pond Parking Lot: Cherry Street, just east of Heritage Park
3. North Lift Station: East side of Centennial Drive, in the 2100 block, north of the former
Safeway
4. Harper Lake Parking Lot: McCaslin Boulevard and Washington Avenue
5. Gateway Lane: McCaslin Boulevard and South Boulder Road - east end of cul-de-sac
6. Recreation Center: 900 Via Appia – south end of the parking lot
7. Coal Creek Golf Course: West side of parking lot
8. Lafayette Street and Franklin Court: End of street
9. Community Park: East entrance off County Road north of Bella Vista Drive
10. Memory Square Park: At the dead end just south of the intersection of Walnut Street
and Grant Avenue
11. Lincoln Avenue & Griffith Street: Open area on northwest side;
12. Monarch Court: Next to Keith Helart Park
13. Intersection of South Street and Front Street: North of the Steinbaugh Pavilio
The city will only accept compostable bags at the drop-off sites. Eco-Guard compostable bags are available at local grocery and hardware stores. King Soopers Biobag brand is also acceptable. The city will not accept brown paper bags. If you collect your leaves in plastic bags, please dump the leaves at the site and take the bags home with you.
Download a map and more information. Call 303-335-4750 with questions.
Superior
The Superior Yard Waste Drop-off site, located on 2125 Honey Creek Lane by the Wastewater Treatment Plant, will be open its normal hours through at least November 16 and later if weather permits.
Residents can bring their leaves and pumpkins to this site during operating hours: Wednesdays, 4 p.m.-7 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays, 8 a.m. - 12 p.m. and 1 p.m - 5 p.m. Call 303.499.3675 for more information or visit their website.
Mulching Tips
Before you go to all the trouble of raking, bagging and shipping your leaves off your property, you might want to save yourself some time and money by keeping them as a mulch you can use to bed down your plants and trees for a long winter's nap. Leaves are a soil nutrient you don't have purchase--Mother Nature delivers them to your door, free of charge, to create a habitat for microorganisms that will slowly digest the leaves and make their valuable nutrients available to the soil. Mulching protects soil and plant roots from temperature extremes and greatly reduces evaporation of soil moisture. A little mulch this winter can help suppress weed growth next spring and summer.
Any open ground, whether it is an unplanted bed or underneath trees, shrubs, or other plants can benefit from mulching year-round.
Dan Matsch, Eco-Cycle's compost expert, suggests some simple application methods for mulch:
Rake it and leave it. Rake the leaves from your lawn directly under the canopy of your perennial trees and shrubs or directly onto beds, to a depth of about 6 inches. Moisten thoroughly to settle them in and protect them from the wind. Leave them there all year; they'll be almost gone when it's time to re-apply. Limiting factors are exposure to high winds, the amount of twigs in rakings, and the degree to which bindweed is a problem (bindweed loves loose mulch).
Put the news to use. To increase weed suppression, put down a layer of newspaper at least one "section" thick (after moistening the soil). Immediately wet the newspaper, then rake the leaves over it and wet down the leaves. The newspaper increases weed suppression in areas where weeds (including bindweed) are a problem.
Get the kids rolling. If your trees shed a lot of twigs along with the leaves, it's best to run your rakings through a chipper/shredder before use as mulch. A chipper/shredder can also be useful for reducing the size of leaves in high wind areas to create a denser mat. If you don't have access to one, you can rake dry leaves up into a tarp and then roll the tarp up into a big sausage. Got kids? Make them earn their keep by having them roll over the top of the leaf sausage several times to crunch the leaves down.
