To the editor:

Re: Yard Waste Issue Won’t Wither and Blow Away, Oct 11 Capital News.

Saturday morning, Oct. 24, was such a beautiful sunny day that I decided to go out in the yard and start my annual fall cleanup.

I have three mature maple trees in the city’s boulevard which were planted by a previous owner a number of years ago plus a couple of smaller bushes and two large trees in my neighbour’s yard which all contribute to approximately 50 bags of leaves per year, some of which go into my two compost bins and garden area.

That morning I raked approximately six bags of leaves and filled up my huge green pickup box, which left another three bags to fill up next, and with the last pickup date three weeks down the road I estimate that less than 10 per cent of the leaves have come down.

I am at a loss as to where the rest of my leaves are to go. I have no way to get approximately 45 bags of leaves to the dump, so one of my neighbours has suggested that I simply pile all of the remaining leaves on the boulevard and have them blow away to another neighbour’s yard—or cut down the trees, but this seems a little extreme being that our city talks the talk about being such a beautiful green city not too mention the fact of what would happen to our air quality if all trees were cut down. Too bad our city can only talk, not walk the walk also.

Another suggestion is to be like other cities that  still use their parks for leaf storage—they simply allow the people to dump their leaves in a city park and when it turns cooler have the city crews mulch them up and use as a ground cover (saves a little on spring fertilizer, too).

I personally think that the city should use the monies generated by the profits of the landfill composting program to pay for an additional pickup in the late fall (mid-November) instead of putting it into general revenue to pay bonuses to city staff at the end of the year.

One other consideration would be to pay the people when they drop off the yard waste at the dump.

Any of these suggestions are better than having millions of leaves simply blowing in the wind.

Dave Kerr,

Kelowna