How leaf pickup works around here (and what to do with the jack-o'-lantern)

Every year the first cold weekend sends half my street out with rakes, and by Sunday night there's a long brown wall of leaves along the curb. Then it sits there, through rain and wind and somebody parking on it, because the truck wasn't coming that week.

The tricky part is that every town around here handles leaves differently. Some boroughs send a vacuum truck. Some townships want paper bags on a certain day. Some leave it to your trash hauler, or you drive the leaves to a drop-off yourself. Before you rake, figure out which kind of town you live in. Then take the jack-o'-lantern seriously, because it has its own rules.

Step 1: Know which system you have

Most leaf piles get skipped for one of three reasons:

They went out too early. The truck isn't coming for two weeks, and in the meantime the pile clogs storm drains and blows back across your lawn.
They're in the wrong container. Almost every town here takes paper yard waste bags. Plastic bags get left behind.
They have junk mixed in. Branches, rocks, and trash can damage the vacuum equipment, and crews will skip a pile with that stuff in it.

Get those three right and you're mostly set. Here's how it works town by town.

West Chester Borough: the vacuum truck

West Chester runs curbside leaf collection from Monday Oct 26 through Thursday Dec 3. North of Market Street gets Mondays and Tuesdays. South of Market gets Wednesdays and Thursdays. High Street splits each half into east and west, so there are four quadrants, and each one gets three passes:

Northwest: Oct 26-27, Nov 9-10, Nov 23-24
Northeast: Nov 2-3, Nov 16-17, Nov 30-Dec 1
Southwest: Oct 28-29, Nov 11-12, Nov 25 (no pickup on Thanksgiving)
Southeast: Nov 4-5, Nov 18-19, Dec 2-3

Crews generally follow the 8 to 11am street sweeper routes on those days, because there are fewer parked cars in the way. So rake to the curb before your dates, not the morning of. Piles go on the curb, not in the alley, with no branches, limbs, or stones. The borough asks you not to pile leaves before the last week of October, and to have your final pile out by the Sunday before your last collection week. After that, the trucks are done for the season.

Missed your pass? You can also put leaves out on your regular yard waste day in biodegradable paper bags. And everything the borough collects gets composted, which I like.

One heads-up: the borough's leaf page text gives a couple of different dates in spots. Go by the schedule table, which matches what I listed above.

Phoenixville: trucks for some streets, bags for everyone else

Phoenixville's trucks run Nov 2 through Dec 31, but only on the streets listed in the borough's collection sections, which get about ten working days each. If your street isn't on that list, you bag your leaves in biodegradable paper bags with your address written on them. Bagged leaves get picked up every other Friday starting Nov 6.

Same rule as everywhere else: don't rake to the curb until the week before your section is up. Mixed piles get skipped.

The Goshens: bags and set days

West Goshen doesn't run a vacuum. Instead it does three Saturday fall pickups: Nov 14, Dec 5, and Dec 19. Use paper bags or cans, never plastic, and don't rake leaves into the street or the creek.

East Goshen picks up yard waste every Wednesday. Use paper bags only, or a can as long as it's under 50 pounds, and put everything out the night before. There's no limit on how many bags. Small branches have to be bundled, tied, and no longer than 3 feet.

Tredyffrin: your hauler, or the Mill Road site

Tredyffrin doesn't run township curbside leaf pickup. Your private trash hauler sets its own fall dates, so check with them. The other option is to haul it yourself. The Mill Road Leaf Site, 1542 Mill Rd, Malvern, opens Monday Oct 26 and runs through Sat Dec 19, 7:30am to 2:30pm. It's closed Fridays, Sundays, Thanksgiving, and Veterans Day. Bring proof that you live in the township.

The nice part is that you get some back. The township puts out free compost for residents at spots including Strafford Library and a couple of township parks.

Not on this list?

Plenty of townships handle leaves only through your trash hauler or a yard waste day. Look up your township's yard waste page or your hauler's fall schedule before you rake. Ten minutes of reading saves you two weeks of staring at a leaf pile.

The jack-o'-lantern problem

Okay, Halloween is over. The pumpkin on your steps is slumping, and you're tempted to toss it on the leaf pile. Don't.

Pumpkins aren't leaves, and at least one township says so outright. East Goshen lists pumpkins under "not accepted" for yard waste. Your town's rules may be different, but a soft, rotting pumpkin in a vacuum pile or a paper bag causes problems either way. Here's what I do instead:

Compost it at home. Pull out the candle and any wax, cut it into chunks, and bury it in the pile or a garden bed. It breaks down fast.
Use a food-scrap service. If you already have curbside organics pickup, pumpkins usually count as food scraps. Parts of Tredyffrin have a curbside compost service. Check what yours accepts.
Leave it for the wildlife in your own yard, if you're fine with squirrels throwing a party.
Check your trash rules. If nothing else works, the regular trash may be the right place in your town.

Just don't dump it in the creek or the woods at the park. Whatever you'd let rot in your own yard, keep in your own yard.

The lazy option: mulch it

If you've got a mower, you can skip some of the raking. Run over the leaves on the lawn a couple of times until they're chopped small and let them settle in. Save the curb for whatever's left. Your back will thank you.

Tell me how your street does it

I covered five towns. There are a lot more. Reply with your town and how leaf pickup works on your street, and I'll add the missing towns to the web version.

Rake the weekend before your pass, not the weekend after Halloween. And give the pumpkin a better ending than the curb.

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