It’s a sure sign winter is coming when we see leaves piling up on the devil strips and overflowing into our streets. If you’re like me, I take Akron’s Leaf Removal Service for granted; I rake and blow my leaves to the curb, and a few days later they’re gone. While this is included under property owner’s street cleaning assessment, there’s no additional service fee. Seeing the leaves got me thinking, what’s behind this on the City’s side?
According to Kevin Miller, Akron’s Street Cleaning Superintendent, this is a huge under taking that somehow runs smoothly every year. It’s a roughly 6 week project (highly dependent on Mother Nature) where we’ve got 80 dedicated city employees working 72 hours each week. That adds up to 34,560 hours annually, at a cost to the city of over $1.4 million dollars (hours, overtime, benefits and equipment costs) to pick up on average 46,500 cubic tons of leaves.
So what happens with all these leaves? In the past Akron dumped them on city property and an outside company processed them into leaf mulch and sold it. Starting this year, Akron will compost them ourselves, and after a year or so, will use the leaf compost mulch to enhance our city parks, ball fields, and flower beds at community centers in and around downtown area. This is truly a green initiative that is a win for Akron and all us!