What to do with all those leaves

Something else to keep in mind during fall cleanup is proper disposal of lawn chemicals – herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers. These materials are considered hazardous waste. They should not go into the trash.

All those leaves that will be falling from the trees in the next few weeks could help green up your lawn, your flower beds or your vegetable garden next spring.

One way is to collect those leaves and bring them to the Town’s transfer station where you add them to a large compost pile, at no charge. The transfer station, which is located off of Route 89 just past Southeast Elementary School, is open Tuesdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursdays from noon to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 pm.

Unlike in urban areas such as Willimantic, the town doesn’t offer leaf collection services. In Mansfield, it’s a self-service arrangement. You dump the leaves yourself. If you’ve collected them in paper bags, you can toss the whole thing into the transfer station leaf pile. If the leaves are in plastic bags, you will have to empty the bags and dispose of the plastic bags in the trash – or reuse them.

The transfer station staff periodically turns the pile and eventually the leaves decompose into finished compost that is available free to town residents. In the spring, it can be added to your flowerbeds or garden soil providing organic matter. It can also be used like other mulch to suppress weeds.

Feed your lawn naturally

Another way to deal with leaves, especially if you don’t have a lot of trees or trees that drop huge amounts of leaves, is to mow over the leaves and leave them on the lawn.

Grass is a plant, and plants need nutrients to stay healthy. By leaving grass clippings and leaves on the lawn, you are feeding nutrients and organic matter to the soil microorganisms. And it is these microorganisms that are essential for healthy soil. Healthy soil is the foundation for healthy grass.

By the way, chemical fertilizers, although packed with fast-acting nutrients, actually deplete the soil of its microorganisms. I digress…..

Although I have trees entirely bordering the lawn areas, I don’t rake. Rather, I mow over the leaves at my house. By mowing over the leaves a few times in the fall, I create small leaf particles that the earthworms and other soil microorganisms can chow down on. And, wow, do they feast, because the broken up leaves really do decompose (disappear) quickly.

Some of you, however, may have A LOT of leaf matter, creating a huge mat of leaves. The majority could be taken up, while allowing some to remain on the lawn to mow over.

Why not make your own compost?

As an alternative to bringing your leaves to the transfer station, if you have the room, create your own leaf pile and/or compost pile. Leaves are high in carbon, so if you add things that are high in nitrogen – such as grass clippings, food scraps, manure (from chickens, rabbits or horses, for example) – you will be providing a balanced diet to the microbes, which will turn the leaves into soil faster. (Yes, it is really all about the microorganisms.) In the spring, there will be some really nice, finished compost that can be used in plantings around the yard or spread around the lawn.

Whatever you do, know that leaves are not accepted in household trash collection. The State and Town mandate them for composting.

Responsible disposal of chemicals

Something else to keep in mind during fall cleanup is proper disposal of lawn chemicals – herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers. These materials are considered hazardous waste. They should not go into the trash.

Instead, bring them to the regional hazardous waste facility, which is located next to Willington’s transfer station, on Hancock Road off of Route 320. It is 5 miles from the Four Corners intersection. What is called the Mid-NEROC Chemical Waste Drop-off Facility is open only on three more Saturdays before it closes for the winter: Oct. 4, 18, and Nov. 1. The facility is open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

If you have questions, please call me during the Town Hall hours at 429-3333 - Mondays through Wednesdays, 8:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursdays 8:15 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.; and Fridays 8 a.m. to noon.

Comments on this or any other item published in Mansfield Today are encouraged. Simply click on the “comment” link at the end of the page. Lengthy comments can be submitted as a Letter to the Editor – sent to brensullivan@yahoo.com – and please include a phone number so that you can be contacted if there’s a question about the submission.

For more information see : http://mansfield.htnp.com/columns/Recycling—V.Walton/34.html

Don't trash this deal

Under the current contract, Mayo charges the town $7.24 per household, while the next lowest bid was $10.35 per household.

The town has a pretty sweet deal with its refuse collector, one that Public Works Director Lon Hultgren was not willing to risk losing by putting this service out to bid.

The Town Manager asked the Town Council this week to waive the bid process and authorize renewing for two years the town’s contract with the Columbia-based FW Mayo & Sons refuse collection company.

Councilmen Gene Nesbitt objected, and said he was uncomfortable with “giving up” the bid process, but Hultgren said that the town now has a better deal than it could hope for in a bid process, given the impact of rising diesel fuel costs.

And because the town has a complicated collection process, not many waste collection businesses want to deal with it, he said.

Mayo & Sons’ bill will be about 4 percent higher than originally contracted for in 2006 – that contract included a 6 percent cost of living adjustment and the option of two-year renewals – but even a 10 percent increase is much lower than could be expected from competitors, Hultgren said.

Under the current contract, Mayo & Sons charges the town $7.24 per household for collecting trash and recyclables at single-family residences, while the next lowest bid was $10.35 per household.

Hultgren warned that if the job went out to bid, Mayo & Sons could jump its bid to $9 per household knowing that the company would still be outbidding its competitors.

Hultgren added that the estimated current increase in fuel costs is 6 percent, so the town is still getting a good price for the service. “We negotiated this – this is not what he [Floyd Mayo] wanted,” Hultgren said.

He also noted that many companies are adding fuel surcharges to their bills and, “they don’t even ask.”

“We’re circumventing that by having this contract,” Hultgren said.

Finance Director Jeff Smith backed Hultgren’s comment that not everyone wants to deal with Mansfield’s multi-tiered service.

“We have a complicated system that everyone in town loves,” Smith said, and then recalled when the town discussed changing from a can-collection to bag-collection service, which would open the door to many more bidders, but residents didn’t want to make that change.

When the town did switch vendors a few years ago, there were so many complaints that the town was forced to end that contract, and lost $50,000 in arbitration, Smith said.

“It was terrible,” he said.

Comments on this or any other story published in Mansfield Today are encouraged. Simply click on the “comment” link at the end of the story. Lengthy comments may be submitted as a Letter to the Editor, sent to brensullivan@yahoo.com

For more information: http://mansfield.htnp.com/news/36.html