Bob Mattsey has allowed the city of Greenfield to use his property to dump leaves collected from throughout the city. Mattsey plans to experiment with a variety of techniques to turn the piles of leaves into compost.
GREENFIELD — As autumn leaves continue to fall, the Greenfield Street Department is continuing leaf pickup as an option to clear your yard of clutter.
Pickup began in early November and will continue until December 10. Greenfield Street Commissioner Tyler Rankins said it’s a busy time for the department’s employees, who are making their way street by street to collect the leaves.
“This week and next week will probably be our peak,” Rankins said.
In a typical year, the street department picks up about 3,000 cubic yard of leaves and about 1,000 bags full of them. That’s enough material to fill up the beds of over 850 pickup trucks.
Leaves must be raked to the curb for pickup, since city employees can’t enter private property. Residents may bag leaves and can call the street department at 317-477-4380 to have bags picked up within two working days.
Residents who live on the east side of State Street will have their leaves picked up through Friday, Nov. 19, and and Nov. 29 through Dec. 3.
Residents who live on the west side of State Street will have their leaves picked up Nov. 22 through Nov. 26 and Dec. 6 through Dec. 10.
The schedule is subject to change due to weather and availability of machinery and crews. Leaves should be at the curb by a.m. on the Monday of the scheduled week to ensure pickup.
Rankins said the department typically grinds up leaves it picks up and gives them to local residents for use in composting. However, the city didn’t have the space to do that this year, since the area it usually uses is on the location of the new wastewater treatment plant currently under construction.
Fortunately, Bob Mattsey came to the city with a solution. Mattsey, a member of the Hancock County Tourism Commission, asked to take the collected leaves for use as his own composting material. They’re being dropped off at his address, where they’ll become material for projects Mattsey has been working on since retiring and becoming certified as a master gardener.
“We didn’t have to pay to take them away to a landfill, so it’s worked out pretty well,” Rankins said.
Mattsey said fallen leaves make an easy composting material, since Mother Nature can do the work of breaking them down. He plans on experimenting with several different methods of composting to see which one breaks them down most efficiently.
“I’m going to turn the leaves into compost to grow vegetables and flowers, on kind of a bigger scale than the typical homeowner,” said Mattsey, who has several acres of land to work with. “Hopefully by spring, it’ll be turned up into some rich, black compost.”
Mattsey said he hopes more people learn about the use of fallen leaves in composting and incorporate them into their home gardens.
“Someday there won’t be as many that have to be picked up and put in a landfill,” he said.