Trustees Consider Leaf Mulching Initiative

A new resolution under consideration by the Scarsdale Village Board of Trustees would put an end to the vacuuming of fall leaves from Scarsdale's streets. Rather than sweep fallen leaves into the street, the Village will encourage residents and gardeners to mulch or grind up leaves with a blade on a power mower and leave the shredded material on the lawn to moisten and fertilize the soil. Those who do not wish to mulch their leaves can place them in biodegradable paper bags that can be left at the curb for weekly collection or brought to the recycling center. The new policy, which would go into affect in October 2015, would save the Village approximately $150,000 per year and would prevent leaves from blocking sidewalks, streets and storm drains.

A public hearing on the resolution will be held at the Scarsdale Village Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday night August 12th.

Both the Friends of the Scarsdale Parks and the Scarsdale Forum support the measure and sent Scarsdale10583 the following statements:

Madelaine Eppenstein, co-President of the Friends of the Scarsdale Parks, sent us the following statement from the group's Board of Directors:

"The Friends of the Scarsdale Parks supports an amendment to the fall leaf collection regulations of the Village of Scarsdale, to take effect immediately. The new regulations should require bagging of fall leaves on all residential properties, with the option for residents to use leaves on their property as mulch; to have leaves and grass clippings mower-shredded in place; to use leaves and grass clippings as a component for making compost; or to have leaves and grass clippings carted away by landscapers. At the same time the Village should establish an ongoing educational program to actively promote the methods and environmental benefits of leaf and grass recycling, and should establish an accelerated timetable for the discontinuation of Village collection of leaves and grass clippings."

FOSP has been an early advocate for a more sustainable environmental approach than the existing collection program of yard organics, and for the use rather than disposal of leaves and grass clippings by residents and the Village contractor and Staff. We vigorously supported the practice of mower shredding/mulching on site in the parks and other Village properties, which was implemented at the two Village center parks in 2012, Chase Park and de Lima Park. Thanks to the farsighted leadership of the Trustees and the Staff, since the beginning of 2013 this method has quickly become the norm throughout the more than two dozen Village properties, including recreation fields, parks and other open spaces. The Resolution on the Fall Leaf Collection Program is a step in the right direction for more sustainable environmental practices in the Village.

Michelle Sterling, is also an advocate for the new plan. According to Sterling, the program has many benefits above the $150,000 in cost savings to the Village. She says it simply makes no sense to clear away leaves from your lawn and then purchase compost from garden centers when the leaves will become compost themselves. She believes that with an effective educational campaign by the Village residents will get their landscapers to purchase mulching blades and change the way they deal with leaves in the fall. The full text of her remarks are included below.

However, everyone is not on board with the new process. In a letter to the Mayor and Board of Trustees dated July 27, 2014, Phyllis Finkelstein of Fenimore Road says that the new process may not work for some. Finkelstein has professional training in horticulture and also owned her own business in the field. She cited several potential problems with mulching, including the following:

1) Some do their own lawn care and do not own a power mower
2) Her home has large deciduous trees and leaves need to be removed from beds and the driveway – not mulched.
3) Gardeners do not have trucks large enough to cart leaf bags
4) On some properties the large volume of leaves if mulched would kill the grass before they could decompose.
5) The process would create more mulch than could be absorbed on small properties
6) The new policy would discourage residents from planting trees.
7) The new police will be hardship for gardeners who will have to purchase new equipment and require more labor to comply.

Finkelstein urged the trustees to seek wider public opinion before "rushing headlong into a change."

(from Michelle Sterling)

The Benefits of Scarsdale's Proposed Leaf Resolution Are Many

Here is our current situation: We pay our landscapers each fall to blow all of our leaves to the curb. Then we pay the Scarsdale $800,000 a year in taxes to come around from September to November to vacuum and rake up all of the leaves. Then we pay Westchester County our tax dollars to have the leaves trucked to Rockland County, upstate New York and Connecticut where facilities compost the leaves and turn around and bag it and sell it to garden centers. Then we pay our landscapers to buy that compost from garden centers and use it to mulch our lawns and beds. This is what is happening right now. Does this make sense to anyone? It doesn't to many of us who are already mulching. We are basically stripping the organic material (our leaves) from our lawns and beds, giving it away for free and then buying it back and paying our landscapers to reapply it. Not mention the environmental cost and impact of trucking the leaves in diesel trucks hundreds of miles away day after day for 3 months every year.

The good news is that there is a better way and the Village has now come out with a resolution in support of mulching and a way to help residents get there. They are saying, look, we realize that loose curbside leaf pickup is a costly, hazardous and environmentally damaging practice. We realize that there is a better way and that onsite leaf mulching, whereby leaves are finely shredded and absorbed into the lawn, is the way to go. The resolution provides for an educational and promotional campaign for mulching. It also allows residents to bag leaves and leave them curbside if for some reason they feel they are unable to mulch.

The Scarsdale Board of Trustees initially passed a resolution in support of leaf mulching in 2011. The resolution asked for the education about and promotion of leaf mulching. To that end Scarsdale has started mulching on all Village parks and public properties, and the schools have started to mulch as well. There hasn't been, however, as much of an impact on residents. Clearly there needed to be something more than an educational campaign, some sort of trigger, to get people to speak with their landscapers and ask them to make the change. The new resolution, with its promotion of mulching along with a bagging option, acts as both a trigger and a fallback. Since mulching is easier than bagging, it will trigger both landscapers and residents to consider mulching their leaves in place, as well as better for the lawn and our environment. The new policy also has a fallback – for residents who don't wish to mulch or who can only partially mulch, they can have their leaves bagged and the Village will pick them up.

But back to the cost of loose leaf pickup: as I mentioned the Village spends $800,000 a year vacuuming up fall leaves. Imagine what could be done to benefit the village and its residents with that money! We have a limited amount of DPW staff that services our community. How nice would it be if they would be able to continue giving us those services from September through November as opposed to devoting themselves to picking up piles of leaves for those three months? What if we could turn what is now called "leaf collection season" into normal work months like any other, where our DPW can go about their normal services, upkeep and care of our community as opposed to devoting themselves to leaf pickup? Some people may feel that the Village is taking a service "away" from them by discontinuing loose leaf pickup. The reality is that residents could be getting that much more in services.

As to the hazards and nuisance of loose curbside leaf piles, I think that we all know them by now: children play in them and if the piles are in the street it is very dangerous, leaves flow into our drains and clog them (causing the village extra expense to clean them out) and of course, the leaves cause hazards on and block our sidewalks, roads and parking spots. Again, we know that loose leaf pickup is costly, environmentally unsound, dangerous and a nuisance and that mulching is the remedy for this, so again, I have to ask, why not do it?

Most landscapers already have mulching blades on their mowers but if they don't anyone can purchase one for their mower for about $50. The Greenburgh Nature Center provides mulching demonstrations with a small Toro lawn mower fit with a $50 mulching blade and it mulches leaves just fine (and they have lots of leaves!). I've seen it myself.

Scarsdale's new leaf resolution would go into effect in the fall of 2015. That gives residents and landscapers 15 months to get up to speed on the best mulching practice for their property.

Most of our neighboring towns already have passed a similar resolution so we are not the first to be doing this. It doesn't matter though whether we are the first or last - the fact is that we have gotten this far and it's a great and positive step environmentally - not to mention fiscally. Let's pass this resolution and move forward and reap the benefits!