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Busy Time Of Year For MN Composting Sites

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Nov 13, 2009 7:34 pm US/Central

Busy Time Of Year For MN Composting Sites

Reporting
Heather Brown
(WCCO) With the beautiful weather last weekend, lots of people spent the both days outside picking up leaves. That means a busy November for composing sites across Minnesota.

The Shoreview site managed by Ramsey County is seeing 300 to 400 cars per hour during the weekend.

"It's been a great fall actually," said Dave Kraai as he was dropping off his leaves, "It's been really fun. I have two kids and they love being out there raking up the leaves."

It was quieter Friday afternoon when David Ham stopped by with his third load to compost. He estimates that he had 100 bags full of leaves from his big oak trees.

Instead of leaving them along his curb in White Bear Township, he bagged them up an brought them to the Ramsey County Shoreview site.

"Trying to do the garbage man a favor," Ham laughed.

Ramsey County runs seven sites. Over the course of an average fall, people drop off 120,000 cubic yards of leaves, the equivalent of 30,000 full-sized, pick-up truck loads.

"It's a way to manage the material in an environmentally friendly way," said John Springman, a supervisor with the Ramsey County Department of Health. "It's also illegal to put in landfills, so we're taking it and making it very convenient for residents to bring it here."

The service is free for all Ramsey County residents. They can drop off their leaves, which are then separated into piles and those piles sit for up to a year and half as they turn into compost.

Ramsey County residents can pick up that compost for free in the spring.

"The same process that you're seeing on a forest floor of the leaves that fall each fall, we're doing that on a larger scale," said Springman.

Its costs the money to run the site due primarily to transportation contracts to move the compost. For Ham, it's worth the time it takes to bring in the leaves.

"Oh geez," he said, "I wouldn't part with the trees."

Each of the Ramsey County sites accept leaves. Some of them also accept pumpkins, grass clippings and trees.

The composting sites are open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday until the end of November. They are also open on periodic weekends throughout the winter.

You can find more information on their Web site by clicking here.

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