I took a closer look at the Town’s report on leaf mulching and re-did my table of the vehicle-miles required to gather and dispose of Vienna’s leaves. The conclusion remains the same — all the options require roughly the same number of vehicle-miles. Continue reading Post #1464: Town of Vienna leaf collection: Drive less and pay more is not worth it. Unless you are driving a Prius Prime.
As the Town of Vienna rethinks the economic and human impact of its centralized leaf collection, maybe this is an opportunity to rethink the environmental impact as well.
In this post, I suggest something the Town of Vienna might do to reduce the environmental harm of centralized collection and disposal of leaves.
Briefly: Give equal footing to policies of “put your leaves out for collection” and “better yet, don’t do that”. That is, raise awareness that the most environmentally sound way to dispose of leaves is to let them decompose in your yard. At the same time, make sure that citizens are aware of the substantial harm that centralized leaf collection and disposal does to our local population of butterflies and other pollinators. Maybe offer little “rustic butterflies” to match the “rustic hearts” that are all over town, signifying a household that promises not to rake their leaves to the curb every fall. Continue reading Post #1463: The Town of Vienna and leaf collection: What if we put the environment first?
The Town of Vienna is in the process of re-thinking its strategy for fall collection and disposal of leaves. There will be a public hearing at 8 PM this Monday (March 21, 2022), at the Vienna Town Hall. You can find the background materials at this link on the Town of Vienna Granicus web page.
In this post, I will briefly summarize the facts of what the Town is considering. Then I’ll make a few points that I plan to bring up at that public hearing. These are, I hope, points that the Town may not hear from other sources. Continue reading Post #1462: Town of Vienna and leaf collection, the TLDR version
