Yard Waste & Leaves
Look up your Collection Schedule
Scheduled leaf and yard waste collection for the spring has ended.
It will resume in the fall.
Leaf and yard waste can still be taken to a drop-off site.
When will the Streets Division collect my yard waste?
Yard waste is picked up sometime during the work week after your Sunday set-out date.
Many neighborhoods can share the same set out date.
The work takes multiple days to complete.
We appreciate your patience while we work through all the neighborhoods sharing the same set out date.
You will miss your collection chance if you put your yard waste out after your set out dates.
What should I do with yard waste when crews aren't collecting it?
Take it to a drop-off site or compost it at home.
Yard waste has been banned from the trash for all of Wisconsin since the 1990s. Never put leaves, grass clippings, and so on in the trash.
Do not put yard waste in the recycling carts. Recycling carts are only meant for bottles, cans, paper, cardboard, and similar items.
The set out date changed and I still have yard waste out. What's happening? Was I missed?
If a set out date has passed, the system will default to showing you the next set out date. This doesn't mean you are missed or anything is wrong.
The look-up tool is very, very basic.
You cannot use this look up to track where crews are working.
You cannot use this to confirm if collection happened at your home, or anything similar to that.
Please put out yard waste on the set out dates provided and then collection occurs during the work week that follows.
How to Place Yard Waste
Please follow these guidelines to make sure we can pick up your yard waste.
- Pile your leaves and yard waste on the terrace, or on the grass at the edge of the street. Do not put leaves in the street.
- Keep yard waste at least 4 feet away from trees, cars, utility poles, mailboxes, fire hydrants, and other obstructions.
Covering & Bagging Leaves
You do not need to cover or bag your leaves. However, this helps keep leaves from blowing into the street.
- Compostable paper leaf bags (preferred): Keep your bags open at the top so we can see what is inside.
- Plastic bags: Keep your bags open at the top. We will cut open plastic bags and leave them on the terrace or in your trash cart.
- Tarp or plastic sheet cover: You can cover your leaf piles with a tarp to keep them from blowing away.
Yard Waste vs. Brush
- Please separate yard waste and leaves from brush. Yard waste and brush are separate collections.
- Yard waste is plant material raked or pulled from your lawn or garden, including:
- Leaves, weeds, grass clippings, and garden trimmings
- Twigs less than 18 inches long
- Pumpkins, black walnuts, crab apples, vines, corn stalks, pine cones, seed pods, etc.
- Brush is sticks and branches from trees, shrubs, or bushes.
Yard Waste Collection Video
How to Conquer Your Leaves in the Fall
Leave the Leaves
If 20% of your lawn is covered with fall leaves, you can just keep them where they fell. They will decompose on their own, and give beneficial insects additional cover for the winter months.
Mulch Your Leaves
If around 50% of your lawn is covered with fall leaves, try using them as mulch. Keep the leaves whole and use them like mulch around your garden. Remember mulch should be around 2 inches deep. Or, you could just run over your leaves with your lawnmower to mow the leaves right where they fell to add nutrients back to your lawn.
Rake the Gutter; Help Our Lakes
When you rake or sweep leaves out of street gutters before rainstorms, you prevent nutrients from pouring into the storm drains.
Storm drains all lead to the lakes. And all of these extra nutrients - like phosphorus - contributes to algae blooms.
You can sign up for fall rain alerts and learn more at the Dane County stormwater website.
Dane County Stormwater Website: Ripple Effects.
Compost at Home
Try composting your leaves at home. Use the resources and guidelines on our Home Composting page to help.
Follow the Collection Rules
After you've mulched all you can mulch, composted all you can compost, and left all you can leave, then follow the city collection rules.
Set out your leaves for pickup on the correct date for your home.
Follow the rules on how you should set out leaves for pickup.
Why Conquering Your Leaves Matters
You Can Keep Our Lakes Clean
When rain falls on leaves in the tree, it makes a nutrient-rich run-off, like a leaf tea, that goes right into our lakes. This "leaf tea" causes toxic algae blooms and other problems in our lakes.
When you keep leaves out of the street, you are helping stop this problem.
You Help Pollinators and Beneficial Insects
Caterpillars, bumblebees, and other beneficial insects like fireflies use leaves kept on our lawns as cover to safe through the winter months.
When you keep leaves on your lawns, you are helping these insects.
You Are Helping Your Lawn & Garden
When you mulch your leaves and when you compost them, you are returning valuable nutrients back into the soil of your lawn and garden.
More Resources
Why can't I see yard waste set out dates?
Here are the two most likely reasons why you cannot see a set out date for leaves.
Before we get into the reasons, let's say this important thing first: If you have yard waste and we are not collecting it, take it to a drop-off site or compost it at home.
Reason 1: You May Be Looking for Yard Waste Set-outs After All the Set-out Dates Have Passed
The spring set-out dates are typically published online sometime in late February or early March.
We perform the spring collection in April and May in most years.
Then there is a pause in yard waste pickup.
The fall set out dates are usually published to the website time in late August or early September.
We perform the fall collection in October through November.
If you are looking for yard waste set out dates during the summer, or after your final pickup date in the spring or the fall, the system will default to telling you that the yard waste season is over.
Reason 2: Tech Issue or a Data Entry Issue?
Most often cause is that there was a small error in how the address was entered into the form.
You just have to enter your street address into the form - just house number and street name. That's it.
There might be a technical hiccup, too. Tech issues generally sort themselves out in about an hour. If it's still not working after you give the computer a little timeout, contact the Streets Division.
When do you collect yard waste?
We collect yard waste during two periods.
We pick it up in the spring. The first pickup is usually in April and the second pickup is in May.
There is a pause during the summer as crews are needed elsewhere.
We collect again in the fall. Usually the fall collections start in October. There are three guaranteed pickups during this season. And then we have another pause in the winter as crews are needed for snow duties.
Why isn't there year-round yard waste pickup?
Take yard waste to a drop-off site when collections are not occurring.
The Streets Division performs many other duties throughout the year and our personnel shifts between that work throughout the year. This has always been the case.
The crews that do yard waste pickup in the spring are needed for other work during the summer months - like doing road repair and helping during the big student move out in August.
In the fall, we stop brush pickup (and other work) so a lot of personnel can shift to yard waste help collect the significant amount of fall leaves.
Then that takes us to winter where all of this very same group of people also makes up the snowplowing force, so the equipment and personnel needs to be ready for that.
So, in order to provide year-round yard waste pickup, additional staff & equipment would be necessary so everything can be done without interruption or fail. And the city budget has not yet been able to support that.
The set out date form isn't recognizing my address. What do I do?
Call us at either 608-266-4681 or 608-246-4532. Our office hours are Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 4pm.
Usually it's a temporary tech issue that resolves itself or maybe a subtle data entry issue (like an extra space or more information than what is necessary).
Either way, give us a call and we will help.
My neighbor put yard waste in the street! I know that's wrong. What should I do?
That's an ordinance violation.
Let Building Inspection know so they can notify the property owner of the problem and give them a chance to fix it before they need to issue a fine.
You have three ways of reporting this. Choose the one that works best for you.
- Send a report a problem of yard waste in the street (this is in the Yard Waste Collection section).
- Call Building Inspection directly at 608-266-4551.
- Email Building Inspection directly.
The website is showing the next set out date, but my yard waste still hasn't been picked up yet. What is going on?
The set out date lookup is a simple tool.
If a set out date has passed, then the system will default to showing you the next available set out date where you can get yard waste out for pickup.
You can't use the set-out date look up to track the progress of where crews are working.
If you put yard waste out on the Sunday assigned to your home, crews have that whole work week to collect from all of the neighborhoods. It takes multiple days during a work week to get to everyone.
If you are sure your pile is missed, please use the the report-a-problem form or contact us to let us know.
Why is there so much debris in the road after pickup in the fall?
We will clean it up when conditions allow for it.
The final step in leaf pickup is street sweeping. In the fall, we work to have our sweepers trail behind leaf crews to collect debris created by leaf collection crews.
There are far more leaf pickup crews than sweepers. And sweepers move much slower than leaf pickup crews, too.
There will be a gap between collection and sweeping.
It can be a few days between collection and sweeping.
We do our best try to keep the sweeping window as narrow as possible, but there will be a gap.
The cause for leaf debris in the street is varied. It can be related to road condition, weather, and even equipment issues.
Whatever the cause, if weather conditions allow for it, our sweepers will be there during following the three guaranteed leaf pickups.
If you remain concerned, you can submit a Yard Waste Collection report-a-problem form to let us know so the field supervisor can look into the matter.
What happens to the leaves and yard waste after the city picks it up or I drop it off?
The material is taken to Purple Cow Organics to be composted.
Composting your yard waste is the right thing to do. Leaves & yard waste contain a lot of nutrients that can be returned to soil as compost.
Also, yard waste has been banned from Wisconsin landfills since the 1990s. No one should put this into the trash.