It’s mid-October, which means it’s prime leaf-raking season. In Concord, that has usually meant raking up all your leaves and somehow lugging them out to the curb for the city to come suck up with its giant vacuum trucks.
But now, there’s a new option, and it just might change your life – bagged collection in the fall.
Yes, you can finally put those leaf bags, previously acceptable only in spring, to use as the city will begin accepting bagged leaves starting Nov. 19.
To be clear, the bulk collection option – in which you just drag all your loose leaves to the curb and leave them there unbundled for the city to pick up – is still going on. That program begins Oct. 29 and runs through Dec. 7. The final three weeks of that period will overlap with the new bagged collection period, which will run Nov. 19 through Dec. 7. In other words, for those three weeks, it will be the Wild Wild West of leaf collection – anything goes!
You may be asking yourself, “So how does this help me? Doesn’t this just mean I would now have to buy bags, where in the past I could just shove everything to the street for free and let the city worry about it?”
Well, yes. But consider this – maybe you have a big backyard that gets absolutely littered with leaves. That’s a lot of volume to move. And maybe you don’t own a tarp the size of Rhode Island, or maybe you do but you don’t have the strength to lug that down to the curb yourself. That’s where packing nice, neat leaf bags comes in real handy.
The bagged collection program also serves as something of a safety net, or a last-minute savior. Since the bagged collection starts near the end of the regular collection period, it means that if you missed your chance at bulk collection at the curb, you can still get rid of those leaves for a few more weeks.
The bagged collection will be handled by Casella Waste Systems, the company that handles the trash. While you only get one shot at bulk collection – if you miss it, the truck will not come back, and you’ll end up just littering the street with your leaves – you’ll have a full three weeks to bring your bagged leaves out to the curb with your trash. Make sure to have the bags out there by 7 a.m. each Monday morning.
For much more information, including the fall leaf collection map, go to concordnh.gov/545/Leaf-Collection. The map will become available once collection starts.
