Bulk Curbside Leaf Collection

For more general information about Naperville's leaf collection program, visit the  main webpage .

Naperville’s thriving urban forest provides a lush, diverse canopy of greenery enjoyed by residents and visitors alike during the warm weather months. However, as cooler weather begins, the logistics of disposing all the fallen leaves comes to the forefront. Each year, in a two-month window, the City must collect over 60,000 cubic yards of leaves. This is enough leaves to fill Centennial Beach TWICE! Keep reading to learn how the Department of Public Works gets it done.

Every year the City provides nine FREE leaf pickup opportunities through two programs and also encourages one alternative method of disposal:

Three times between mid-October and Thanksgiving, leaves can be placed in piles on the curb to be picked up by the Public Works Department. Bulk curbside leaf collection is the most popular leaf disposal option, collecting 75-80% of the leaves each year.  It is also the most challenging program to operate and the focus of this page.

For six weeks from early November through mid-December, leaves can be placed at the curb in 30 gallon craft paper bags on garbage day to be picked up by the City's waste hauler. During this time, yard waste stickers are not required. About 20-25% of leaves are collected via this method each year.

To benefit from the rich nutrients of falling and decomposing leaves, the City encourages residents to  mulch fallen leaves into their yard , garden beds, and around the base of their trees. Mulch provides  cover for living organisms  during winter and beneficial fertilizer for plants the following spring.

Each year, the Public Works Department picks up leaves from the entire City three times over the course of a six-week period.  In a typical season, Public Works will travel along more than 2,700 miles of curbs to  collect more than 50,000 cubic yards of leaves .

To collect so many leaves such a short period of time requires good equipment, hard-working staff, a lot of coordination, and a little bit of luck with the weather. This is how it works:

In 2021, a significant change was made to the leaf collection process that greatly improved the program.

For decades, leaf-loaders were the workhorse of leaf collection. They function similar to a snow blower; scooping up the leaves and blowing them into the back of a truck. Leaf-loaders got the job done, but they struggled in wet weather. They are also a specialized piece of equipment that is no longer produced and difficult to maintain. As the equipment aged, they were prone to breakdowns and replacement parts had to be fabricated in-house. All of these issues were causing delays in leaf collection, sometimes preventing the completion of the program before winter weather arrived.

In 2021, the Public Works Department transitioned to using front-end loaders to pick up the leaves. The front-end loaders are just as efficient as the leaf loaders in dry weather and they perform much better in inclement weather.  And because front end loaders are a common piece of construction equipment, they are easier to maintain. They can also be used throughout the year for other projects.

Since the switch over, Public Works is collecting more leaves than ever before and has never failed to complete the program before winter.

Bulk leaf collection must be accomplished during the six-week period between mid-October and Thanksgiving.  There is virtually no flexibility in this timing.  It can’t start any earlier because there would be no leaves to collect, and it can’t extend any later because it would interfere with the City’s winter operations.

The start date of the leaf collection program is really determined by when the program must end.  The same staff and equipment that collect leaves are also responsible for snow removal on City streets.  Keeping the roads safe for the community and first responders during winter weather is a top priority of the City.  Thus, leaf collection must be completed and staff and equipment must be ready for the winter season before it hits.

The goal is to have all equipment ready for winter storms by December 1st. Since it takes six weeks to complete three full leaf collection cycles and an additional week to transition the equipment to winter operations mode, leaf collection must start by the middle of October.

There is great variability in the arrival of winter weather each season. Some years snow does not fall until late December. But in other years, winter has arrived much earlier, sometimes even while leaf collection is still on-going. Completing leaf collection by Thanksgiving gives Public Works a good chance that they will be ready for winter weather before it arrives.

To avoid winter weather, the leaf collection program must start by mid-October. But it cannot start any earlier than mid-October because there would not be enough leaves to collect.  In fact, even with a mid-October start date, the first cycle of leaf collection typically yields the least amount of leaves of all three cycles.

If the first cycle does not produce that many leaves, why not start later and work faster? 

The program cannot be completed any faster than six weeks. Public Works staff works long hours - six days a week - to complete the three collection cycles in six weeks.  Leaf collection is an “all-hands-on-deck” operation for the department.  All other non-essential operations are suspended while all the equipment operators (plus temporary staff) focus on leaf collection.  The City is only able to contract out about 10% of collection because there are few private companies still interested and capable of providing this service.

While the first cycle may not generate that many leaves, it still serves a purpose. Residents with trees that drop their leaves early (e.g. honeylocusts) are grateful for the first cycle. Meanwhile, any leaves collected in the 1st cycle helps to lighten the workload for the 2nd and 3rd cycle.

Leaves are transported to local farms where they are composted into the fields.  This keeps the leaves out of the landfill, but there is still an environmental impact from all the heavy equipment and large trucks used to collect and transport these leaves to the farm fields.

To further reduce your impact on the environment,  consider composting the leaves  on your property.  Not only will you gain  the benefits of composting , but there will be no energy expended to transport the leaves to another location. In addition, fewer leaves placed on the curbside reduces the number of leaves that clog up storm drains and pollute local rivers.

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