Local video: Watch a giant vacuum suck up leaves on the curbs in Gainesville.
Gainesville's leaf pickup rules
- Do not place piles of leaves in or on the street. This creates a driving hazard and could result in an accident. Also, leaves placed on the street are often washed into the city's storm sewer during rain and cause potential flooding problems.
- Place your leaves in long narrow piles along the back of the curb. Remove all trash, dirt, brush clippings, grass clippings, rocks, limbs or sticks longer than six inches. These sticks and other yard waste can damage mulching equipment, and piles containing these items will not be collected.
If you have questions on leaf removal, contact the Gainesville Street Maintenance Division Office at 770-532-0379.
City of Gainesville
Leaf pickup zones
Zone 1
When: Pickup is the first and third week of each month; leaves have to be place behind the curb before 8 a.m. Monday
Where: All portions of the city west of a line down Thompson Bridge Road along Green Street and south along E.E. Butler Parkway
Zone 2
When: Pickup is the second and fourth week of each month; leaves have to be placed behind the curb before 8 a.m. Monday
Where: Portions of the city east and north of a line down Thompson Bridge Road along Green Street and south along E.E. Butler (this includes Riverside Drive, the Brenau University area and the Lakeview Academy area back to U.S. 129)
Each year fall turns the leaves into gorgeous shades of yellow, orange and red. And as long as they're on the trees, they're pretty.
Then they start to fall, and the cleanup begins.
This means homeowners across Northeast Georgia are in the midst of raking and blowing millions of leaves and stuffing them into large trash bags. Although, if you live within the city limits of Gainesville, you can just pile up your leaves on the curb and wait for the truck with a big vacuum.
"The leaf season runs from Oct. 1 until the last full week in January," said David Heaton, Gainesville street superintendent. "We pick up 200 to 250 cubic yards of leaves per day in peak of leaf pickup, which is the second week in November to mid-December."
The leaves are then dropped off of at the city's Alta Vista waste facility and turned into compost.
"We do it five days a week, weather permitting," Heaton said of the pickups, which are split between two zones. "If it's raining real hard a lot of times we won't, if we're caught up on a zone."
Just be aware that curb-side leaf pickup is open only to city of Gainesville residential properties and not commercial properties.
Rob Honeycutt, a Gainesville resident, said the leaf pickup in the city is "the best thing in the world."
"I try to be creative," he said. "I mow all mine (leaves) down. I don't pull out a rake. I don't even think I own a rake because we don't have to bag."
Honeycutt said he mows and then blows his leaves to the curb two or three times a year.
"Then in the spring, usually the wind will pick up and blow the rest for me," he said. "It's been easier since it's been so dry; if the grass grows up it makes it harder to clean."
Not all Hall County residents have the same luxury at their homes as city residents, but they are welcome to haul their yard trash to an inert landfill, which is an independently-run, privately-owned landfill.
"We don't have a pickup service in the county," said Cary Lawler, Hall County solid waste manager. "We don't take any here (Candler Road Landfill), any yard trimmings, leaves or anything like that. ... The only thing the county handles is when leaves get in a ditch, as far as residents are concerned."
In Oakwood, according to public works supervisor Jason Spencer, the only type of tree cleanup available for residents is tree chipping.
"We do wood chipping, pickup and storm damage as well," he said. "The way it works is the last Friday of the month we'll make our rounds through the city and if you have anything that you have that needs to be removed - limbs that need to be chipped up and removed - you take them to the curb the night before and we'll chip it all up ... and the chippings are free to the Oakwood residents."
Nearby in Flowery Branch, according to Bill Andrew, Flowery Branch city manager, each Monday throughout the year the public works department will canvass the city for brush, limbs and leaves.
All county residents can now get a permit to burn small limbs and leaves, according to Hall County Fire Services.