Connecticut residents dispose of nearly as much yard waste (11.1% of waste in CT) as plastic (11.8%). Before you decide to have your leaves collected by the City, consider using them to beautify your yard! The leaves that accumulate in and around your home are a valuable natural resource that can be used to give nutrients to your yard and retain moisture.  

• Composting. Two chemical elements are needed to make good, nutritious compost to return nutrients to your soil: nitrogen and carbon. The nitrogen can come from kitchen food scraps, such as fruits and vegetable scraps. The carbon can come from the leaves in your yard! Shredding the leaves using a mulching mower can help speed up the time it takes to turn them into compost. Click here to learn more about unlocking the benefits of leaves through composting.
• Ground cover. Leaves contain 50 to 80 percent of the nutrients a plant extracts from the soil and air during the season. Simply place a one-inch-deep layer of leaves as ground cover beneath plants but not touching their stems. Or add an inch of leaves to a garden path. In each case this helps prevent weed growth and retains moisture. Keep the leaves moist so that they don’t blow away. Over time, the leaves will decompose, adding nutrients to the soil.
• Mulch. You can also shred leaves by running them through a mulching mower or another kind of shredding machine. This will allow you to place deeper layers of leaves around plants as the shredding allows air and moisture to pass through. You can spread a 3 to 6 inch layer of shredded leaves around your trees and shrubs or a 2 to 3 inch layer around your annual/perennial beds. A thick layer in between rows of your vegetable garden to act as both a walkway and a mulch! It's important to keep the mulched leaves moist so they don’t blow away. Click here to learn more about how you can use leaves as garden mulch.