8 May 2013

Please don't dump your leaves onto the street pleads TAMS

| johnboy
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leaves

Territory and Municipal Services have some suggestions on where to see pretty leaves around town. And a plea to not rake them onto the street:

With Canberra’s trees well into their autumn transformation, people are encouraged to recycle fallen leaves by using them as garden mulch or composting them, Michael Brice, Territory and Municipal Services’ Urban Treescapes Manager, said today.

“At this time of year, deciduous trees gradually shed their leaves, creating a great deal of leaf litter around many homes,” Mr Brice said.

“Too often people are keen to rid their lawns and gardens of fallen leaves without realising they are a good source of mulch, compost and natural nutrients for their garden.

“Smaller leaves can be left in your garden so they can break down gradually and add nutrients to the soil. The leaves can also be shredded together with prunings and grass clippings to produce nutrient-rich compost ready for use in spring.

“Unfortunately, some people rake leaves off their lawn and nature strips onto the street. This can cause the gutters and drains to become blocked and can ultimately lead to high nutrient levels in our lakes once the leaves get there from the stormwater network. People are encouraged to make use of the leaves in the front garden and on the nature strip too.”

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MissChief said :

DrKoresh said :

caf said :

TAMS do send the street sweepers around several times during late autumn, with a couple of weeks in between. At least, they do around here.

Where? …Red Hill?

Have heard some suburbs get more attention than others, so wouldn’t be surprised. I can guarantee you our suburb hasn’t been swept at all this year. There might be a schedule but its not being kept to. Cost cutting perhaps?

Inner north. They haven’t come around yet this year, but that’s not particularly surprising since the leaves have only really dropped in the last few weeks.

A_Cog said :

Gungahlin Al said :

To A_Cog: “A Greens MP running TAMS” for 7 months was the cause of a lack of street sweeping by TAMS for years eh? Seriously…

*sigh* how about this interpretation of my comment: If Rattenbury cared so much, he could order TAMS to begin a new regime of street-sweeping more than once every six months. What most societies do when they discover a wide-spread problem like environmental degradation or some such issue is use their collective resources CALLED A GOVERNMENT to sort the problem on everyone’s behalf, using the resources the government has available THANKS TO TAXES. You know, like police solving crimes, hospitals treating the sick, schools teaching kids, and an environmental agency mopping up the enormous amounts of leaves which poison our waterways.

You know? Gubmint?!?

Are you serious?

Honestly, if you want the Government to be wholly responsible for every single thing that occurs outside of your home, then you had better not complain when your TAXES go through the roof.

Our Government is trying to sort this problem on everyone’s behalf – and part of that is trying to get people to look after themselves and their own area, rather than spending the limited amount of money they have available on an army of street sweepers patrolling our suburbs all autumn long.

Have you actually seen how many leaves a decent sized tree can drop? Are street sweepers supposed to visit every street with leaf dropping trees weekly until there are no more? Would you like to see hospital and police funding dropped, so we can afford to remove the onerous task of raking up leaves from home owners?

FFS, every autumn we enjoy the photos posted of Canberra’s autumn colours, but heaven forbid we have to deal with the leaves ourselves! If it’s that much of a burden, buy an apartment.

That street sweeping schedule bundah attached – how do you find out what streets they actually do? I saw a street sweeper the other day in Chisholm (during April, as per the schedule), at 745am on Hambidge (the main street) near Isabella – ie, on its way out. It certainly did not do any streets near me.

DrKoresh said :

caf said :

A_Cog said :

If TAMS cared so much, TAMS could do one of three things:
1. Send street sweepers out to your street more than once every six months (seriously, they do this)
2. Switch all the deciduous trees with evergreens
3. Change the stupid rules which prevent serious trimming of trees more than 14m high on residential blocks

But NO! With a greens MP running TAMS, it’s now up to all of us to clean up after the mess that nature makes.

TAMS do send the street sweepers around several times during late autumn, with a couple of weeks in between. At least, they do around here.

Where? …Red Hill?

Have heard some suburbs get more attention than others, so wouldn’t be surprised. I can guarantee you our suburb hasn’t been swept at all this year. There might be a schedule but its not being kept to. Cost cutting perhaps?

bundah said :

Yes i’m well aware of what months they come around and if i knew what day they were going to sweep the road what problems do you envisage,too many leaves?

That’d be one issue. The reliance on Joe Citizen would be another. But the main issue is logistics; they couldn’t service the entire city in one pass in mid autumn without dozens of vehicles. In my suburb they come in March, August and November which is pretty useless for picking up autumn leaves.

Green waste bins!

Gungahlin Al said :

And another related thing: don’t pile them and all your grass clippings two foot high around your street tree. It causes “Collar Rot” and will kill the tree.

Thanks for the tip Al, I’ve been looking for a way to get rid of that pesky gum tree on my nature strip. I will try this.

caf said :

A_Cog said :

If TAMS cared so much, TAMS could do one of three things:
1. Send street sweepers out to your street more than once every six months (seriously, they do this)
2. Switch all the deciduous trees with evergreens
3. Change the stupid rules which prevent serious trimming of trees more than 14m high on residential blocks

But NO! With a greens MP running TAMS, it’s now up to all of us to clean up after the mess that nature makes.

TAMS do send the street sweepers around several times during late autumn, with a couple of weeks in between. At least, they do around here.

Where? …Red Hill?

If it was a real issue i’m sure vegetation bins would come onto the menu.

A_Cog said :

If TAMS cared so much, TAMS could do one of three things:
1. Send street sweepers out to your street more than once every six months (seriously, they do this)
2. Switch all the deciduous trees with evergreens
3. Change the stupid rules which prevent serious trimming of trees more than 14m high on residential blocks

But NO! With a greens MP running TAMS, it’s now up to all of us to clean up after the mess that nature makes.

TAMS do send the street sweepers around several times during late autumn, with a couple of weeks in between. At least, they do around here.

Leaves make great mulch – either directly on beds (water the bed first, as it’s so dry) or put them in a compost bin (or one of those standing up garbage bags), chuck in a few handfuls of blood and bone and wet well before closing. They break down into a lovely compost.

After fruitlessly chasing TAMS for 12 months to fix my suburb, it was no surprise to me to see last year’s leaves clogging paths and gutters around Civic (especially near Alinga Flats) – the leaves on the trees were green.

As I have tried to point out to TAMS weeding paths, sweeping gutters, painting railings, etc protects our infrastructure. A stitch in time and all that…

Canberra looks a shambles and if the drainage system is now backing up, don’t blame us.

A_Cog said :

If TAMS cared so much, TAMS could do one of three things:
1. Send street sweepers out to your street more than once every six months (seriously, they do this)
2. Switch all the deciduous trees with evergreens
3. Change the stupid rules which prevent serious trimming of trees more than 14m high on residential blocks

But NO! With a greens MP running TAMS, it’s now up to all of us to clean up after the mess that nature makes.

number 1, the suburbs which have so many of these trees are in the inner north and inner south, these suburbs have had rates increase and will continue to pay more rates. use some of that extra rates money to sweep our streets.

Gungahlin Al said :

To A_Cog: “A Greens MP running TAMS” for 7 months was the cause of a lack of street sweeping by TAMS for years eh? Seriously…

*sigh* how about this interpretation of my comment: If Rattenbury cared so much, he could order TAMS to begin a new regime of street-sweeping more than once every six months. What most societies do when they discover a wide-spread problem like environmental degradation or some such issue is use their collective resources CALLED A GOVERNMENT to sort the problem on everyone’s behalf, using the resources the government has available THANKS TO TAXES. You know, like police solving crimes, hospitals treating the sick, schools teaching kids, and an environmental agency mopping up the enormous amounts of leaves which poison our waterways.

You know? Gubmint?!?

niftydog said :

bundah said :

Of course if we actually knew when the street sweepers were coming around …

Well, you do now. However I can think of a couple of problems with your plan!

Yes i’m well aware of what months they come around and if i knew what day they were going to sweep the road what problems do you envisage,too many leaves?

bundah said :

Of course if we actually knew when the street sweepers were coming around …

Well, you do now. However I can think of a couple of problems with your plan!

Of course if we actually knew when the street sweepers were coming around like they did in parts of bundah this morning we could pile ’em up and leave them in the gutters the night before and they’d be gone the following morning,no harm done!

Gungahlin Al2:47 pm 08 May 13

And another related thing: don’t pile them and all your grass clippings two foot high around your street tree. It causes “Collar Rot” and will kill the tree.

To A_Cog: “A Greens MP running TAMS” for 7 months was the cause of a lack of street sweeping by TAMS for years eh? Seriously…

It angers me that people are happy for their lawns to look lovely but chuck their leaves in the gutters.
I take great joy in driving into the piles of leaves making them fly back onto that lazy person’s lawn >:)

HiddenDragon said :

Could TAMS please arrange for all of the leaves to fall within a period of a day, or two – so that those of us who try to care about this sort of thing don’t have to repeatedly run around with rake/broom/bin to do the recycling thing – it would be so helpful if they could do that, and also ensure that no leaves fall within a week before any rainfall..

apparently the greenies running TAMS, and the carbon tax, means that this cannot be done.

Just go over them with your lawnmover and dump the stuff straight onto the garden beds.

I’ve seen one well known Canberra gardener take his mower into some of our local parks and suck up ute loads of leaves

GardeningGirl1:43 pm 08 May 13

Do as I say, not as I do. Use to be the government sent a truck to the school to collect the leaves. I can’t say for sure the truckload of leaves went to green recycling but it would’ve been ridiculous to take a truckload of nothing but leaves anywhere else. (I also liked that it provided employment for some disabled people too.)
Then something changed and landscape maintenance was given to private contractors, who ‘don’t do leaves’. So the leaves use to go in the garbage hopper with all the other garbage to go to the tip. I don’t know if that’s still the case, I really hope they’ve come up with a better system since then to take advantage of the “good source of mulch, compost and natural nutrients for their garden”.

But what will all the gardening firms who service the unit blocks in my street who regulary blow the leaves into the gutter do?

HiddenDragon1:30 pm 08 May 13

Could TAMS please arrange for all of the leaves to fall within a period of a day, or two – so that those of us who try to care about this sort of thing don’t have to repeatedly run around with rake/broom/bin to do the recycling thing – it would be so helpful if they could do that, and also ensure that no leaves fall within a week before any rainfall.

With this assistance from our friends at TAMS, we will have that much more time to read and post fascinating comments on the RiotAct.

If TAMS cared so much, TAMS could do one of three things:
1. Send street sweepers out to your street more than once every six months (seriously, they do this)
2. Switch all the deciduous trees with evergreens
3. Change the stupid rules which prevent serious trimming of trees more than 14m high on residential blocks

But NO! With a greens MP running TAMS, it’s now up to all of us to clean up after the mess that nature makes.

And what are they going to do with the leaves on Government land? Are they going to come and put them in a nice pile, or leave them sitting in the gutters?
Also, what happens to all the other crap TAMS put down the storm water drains?

There’s gold in them gutters. Those leaves should be packed into garden beds as mulch where they’ll break down and improve the dirt, and insulate the garden from frost. Or better still, into a compost bin where they turn into garden gold. Crazy to let them flush and contaminate the sewers.

thebrownstreak6912:23 pm 08 May 13

The best thing to do with leaves is to burn them in your backyard.

Just kidding – I rake up and use them as winter mulch on my garden beds.

I’ve always been of the opinion that the right place for leaves in Autumn is under the tree that dropped them.

I cannot understand why people put so much effort into keeping their lawns leaf free.

well apparently we’re killing canberra’s waterways.

If one were to have a lawn the leaves don’t do it any favours though.

Why do you hate grass so much?

and TAMS, how about when TAMS cut the grass, TAMS don’t leave the clippings to be washed into the storm drain.

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