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City of Bloomington considers compost-by-default leaf management system

By Holden Abshier

Posted March 3, 2022

A photo of autumn leaves and yard waste in a Bloomington street.

(Emma Atkinson, WFIU/WTIU News)

The City of Bloomington is considering moving away from its vacuum-by-default leaf management system in favor of household composting by 2024. The change could save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Over the next two years, vacuum services would continue to be offered. However, the city is proposing to transition the vacuum service to a fee-based, on-demand system by 2024. The fee would be $20 per household for each scheduled pickup.

City staff, led by innovation director Devta Kidd, presented the recommendation to city council Wednesday after a two-year pilot program concluded in December.

In the first year of the “1,000 Households Who Mulch” program, 22 households participated. Just under 60 percent of these participants were able to manage their leaves between September and December 2020 without city services.

“We asked the 22 households to mulch and compost as much as they could of their own leaves that are being produced on their property,” said Michael Large, public works operations director. “The excess would be bagged and collected by our yard waste and sanitation division of public works.”

The second year included 493 households, 201 of which completed the end of pilot survey which is serving as a baseline for staff’s metrics. In 2021, the city saw a 32 percent increase in the number of respondents willing to process their own leaves.

“Ninety-one percent of the respondents said they were able to mulch, compost, give away, or set out bags of leaves for yard waste collection and not use the vacuum collection at all,” Kidd said.

City staff said their main concern was whether the workload from the vacuum collection crew would shift to the yard waste crews. However, this was not the case. Vacuum services decreased from 29.5 percent in 2020 to 12.5 percent in 2022, and yard waste services decreased from 12.5 percent in 2020 to 4.17 percent in 2022.

Pilot program participants — Map of pilot program participants across Bloomington. (*Courtesy: City of Bloomington*)

The cost of the leaf collection program dropped from $709,458 in 2019 to $510,349 in 2020. Projected future costs are between $93,541-$304,741 per year, depending on how many households opt into the fee-based service in 2024.

However, Kidd said the city’s prediction is conservative and is estimating only 60 percent of households will manage their own leaves.

“These are leaves that aren’t going into storm drains that are clogging them during rain events,” councilmember Dave Rollo said. “Because we sweep them to the street often and they are not picked up immediately.”