Brush and Leaf Pickup
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Leaves and brush are picked up on a rotating schedule during the months of April through October.
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The leaves and brush should be placed at the edge of your property in large paper bags, boxes, or cans no heavier than 20Lbs each. (nothing in plastic bags will be picked up). Larger piles will be noted and slated for later pickup with grapple equipment.
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The Highway Department does not pick up grass clippings, however you may drop them off at the 4334 Milton Ave in the designated area. Please no plastic or other non-biodegradables.
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Brush limbs should be no greater than five feet in length, or having a diameter of six inches or more, with no metal or other materials attached to them.
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The Highway Department does not offer special pickups, we pick up on a rotating schedule from Zone 1 through Zone 5 per the interactive mapping (See interactive map)
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If your bag has been marked with white paint, it has been identified by our crew as containing items that we cannot pick up. Your bag will not be picked up until it is rebagged properly without grass, dirt, plastic or other non-biodegradable materials as identified.
Please do not put yard waste in the road; it is hazardous and illegal!
Note: Municipal Law Chapter 50S50.24(C) prohibits the Highway Department from picking up yard waste produced by a commercial contractor. Any such yard waste must be removed by the contractor or the homeowner. The Highway Department will only remove yard waste produced by the homeowner, which meets the requirements outlined above.
Zone 1: Orchard Village, Thornton Tract, Richlee Tract, Knowell Road, Bennett Road, Weldon Village, Hinsdale Road, Elm Hill Tract, and Milton Avenue from Hinsdale Road west to the Village
Zone 2: Pioneer Farms, Weatheridge, Barclay Rd., Blackmore Tract, Tadsworth Circle, Oakridge Drive area, Kasson Rd., Stanley Manor east to Weldon Rd., Scenic Hills Tract
Zone 3: Dunning Dr., Richards Rd. east to Onondaga Rd. including Old Fairmount, Milton Ave. east from Hinsdale Rd. to the Town line, West Genesee St.
Zone 4: Whedon Rd., Hidden Knolls, Fairmount Hills east including Onondaga Rd
Zone 5: Gifford Dr. area including Westlind, Olin Dr., Westholm, Granger Rd. area, Warners Rd. area, Horan Rd. area, Westover Tract, Greenfield Village, VanBuren Rd., Edgewood Gardens, West Hill area, Lyons Rd. area
NOTE: There will be no yard waste pick up on a holiday.
Please refer to the interactive mapping for Zone overlay information.
Fall Leaf Pickup:
The Highway Department canvasses the Town three times each Fall to pick up large piles of loose leaves. Leaves may be left loose and should be raked to the edge of your property. If you miss the fall pickup, your leaves may be placed into paper bags or boxes for the regular pickup. See the work calendar to locate crews.
Placing leaves in the road is hazardous and illegal! Please just rake them to the edge of your property.
Compost:
The Town Highway Department recycles and composts everything picked up. The Town’s composting facility is located at 4334 Milton Avenue, at the Highway Department complex. Residents may dispose of materials for composting or pick up compost for their own use between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. During the summer months, these services are also available on Saturdays from 7:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Compost grinding is available for residents’ use free of charge.
Reasons for Yard Waste Schedule Changes
The overall schedule for brush pick-up has been altered, We are following a very similar time line as past years… To build efficiency, I have instituted a zone system that coincides with the old day pick-up routes… This will hopefully build efficiency over time when the main thrust of spring or fall cleanup slows a bit… I have received several differing complaints that have led me to the decision in making the adjustment to what had been published as the brush pick-up schedule... We are sorry for any confusion this may have caused.
Examples of past situations;
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Our trucks go out to pick up brush on the original scheduled day (Monday) and find that they can make it through the scheduled day’s route and part way through the next day (Tuesday)…. A home owner then questions “I thought my day was Tuesday” and is then confused as to when to put out their leaf bags… While our crew on the following day (Tuesday) now is forced to restart back at the beginning of the scheduled day’s route to make sure nothing was placed out after picking it up on the previous day (Monday)… Thereby covering the same ground twice…
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At other times when the debris piles are too big to pick up (Like spring or fall) they will mark them for grapple pick up or leaf vacuum pick at a later scheduled date or simply come back and finish on the next day… Workloads can get backed up and it is assumed that we left the debris unscheduled for pick up… This causes concern for the home owner that we have for gotten them or not provided the service…
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Even more, when our crews are unable to get through a day’s route, home owners feel as though they are not being served when schedule suggested they should be…
For these reasons and more such as these, we have altered the brush pick-up schedule slightly to try and build efficiencies, when a crew can get ahead, we want them to stay ahead and when a crew is behind, we will respond with larger crews to catch up (as we do in the spring and fall)… I have called each of the old day’s routes zones 1 thru 5 rather than Monday thru Friday… In general they are consistent with each other and will generally follow closely to what has always been scheduled, however when a crew finds they are ahead of schedule, we want them to remain so… we anticipate when things are caught up we should be able to get all around town in a few days allowing people to place their bags out at any time… This will help those who find it difficult to put all of their yard waste bags out in a single day…
We continue to monitoring the progress of our work to keep the service level as high as possible within our current budget…