Leaf Collection ~ 2009 Season
The 2009 West Hartford bagged leaf collection program began on Tuesday, October 13th in the Monday refuse collection area. Two Town crews will begin in the Monday refuse collection area and continue through each refuse area collecting leaf bags on your refuse collection day. The program will continue for 10 weeks through Friday, December 18th. Simply place the bags at the curb on your trash collection day and a truck will come by to pick them up. Collection crews will be added as the volume of leaf bags increases. Please be aware that when a collection district is completed collection crews may skip ahead to other refuse collection areas on any given collection day . This is done to keep crews working efficiently. Crews will return to your area on your normally scheduled collection day.
This year the Town of West Hartford will only collect leaves in 30 gallon biodegradable bags. This is a conversion from a combined vacuum and bagged collection used over the past ten years. Since the bagged collection was first offered 10 years ago there has been a steady increase in the participation level by residents. Although the vacuum collection may have allowed residents the easiest form of presentation by being able to pile their leaves at the curb line it did have its issues.
- Vacuum collection only provided you one collection per season over the 10-week collection period.
- If your vacuum collection was during the first few weeks of the scheduled collection you did not get the opportunity to fully utilize the vacuum service and had to rely on bagging your leaves for the remainder of the collection period.
- Poor weather in the weeks prior to your scheduled vacuum collection greatly impacted your ability to get your yard raked to the curb.
- You had to be fully aware of the collection schedule and delays due to weather or excessive volume.
- Leaves piled in the street caused safety, drainage and appearance issues.
- Early snow storms created issues with leaves getting plowed onto sidewalks and into driveways.
Bagging your leaves will be a little more time consuming but, you will have 10 weeks to put as many bagged leaves at the curb on your refuse collection day as needed. Everyone gets the same opportunity to have their leaves collected, no one is first or last. You are no longer impacted by trees that have not shed their leaves when the vacuum passes in front of your home. It is the fairest method of collection a municipality can offer to its residents and it is less expensive, than a vacuum collection, to you as a taxpayer. We know that for many of you this is not a popular change but please give it a chance. As we spoke with other municipalities that have converted to all bag collections we were pleased to learn that residents had come to prefer the change. A preference that is similar to our conversion to automated refuse collection.
We ask for your cooperation in keeping your leaves and leaf bags at the curb and out of the street. This will prevent leaves from clogging catch basins. Leaf bags and leaf piles in the gutter also create hazards for parked vehicles, effectively narrowing streets and reducing the effectiveness of public works snowplowing operations.
If you use a landscape company to remove your leaves, please click on the link regarding our Leaf Voucher Program and print out and complete the voucher form.
More information is available from several sources: online at the Town’s website at www.west-hartford.org , by viewing WHC-TV channel 5 on your cable television system, or by calling the public works department at 561-8100.
