What about yard waste?

[danielpw]

Yard waste is 20% of what goes from our towns to the dumps... an easy shred for our kind of equipment. Is anybody doing anything with it? I hate to pay to put the stuff in a landfill....

[KPark]

If a person has an undeveloped area to utilize, could spread the material there for natural decomposition. If not, then maybe a farm that does bulk composting. It does not make good fill, but does turn into good topsoil after a few years. For some the easy way out is just to take it to the dump.

[sdkubota]

Most landfills compost yard waste.

[sweettractors]

Can you burn it? Ken Sweet

[danielpw]

I agree. The best use is to put it back on the land... it knows what to do with it.
The landfills that compost.... only do so to stabilize the latent spontaneous combustion factor (like hay that is baled or stacked too wet catches fire, burns barns). Stabilized organics are then mixed with dirt and used for daily cover (ADC) over the solid waste... dilution being the solution, it will not be so bio-reactive as to cause those fires, but will produce methane for decades as it decomposes in the landfill instead of doing some good on the ground... Some of the material is sold but the bulk of it is added to the landfill's cover.
Many contractors grind and process the yard waste and sell it as mulch to be sure, but most of it goes to the landfills.
Biomass for fuel is one of those coming resources but yard waste is full of contaminants: the leaves, twigs, bark, grass and dirt have to be screened out, leaving the wood fiber relatively clean, before the BTU capture is truly worth the effort. The fine screened material is a good soil amendment soil because it is so biologically complex... hauling it back out is expensive.
Transporting the materials is the primary issue. Shred the material in a small town brushlot and you don't have to pay to take it anywhere. Why do we give this soon-to-be landscape and fuel resource away when almost every small town can handle the material with a shredder mounted on one of their own tractors?

[MIKE R]

Can you burn it?

Thats what I do. If it can burn in the fire it goes.

[danielpw]

It will burn, but it is more like the corn stover they used to burn for heat in the 30's... lotta smoke and had to be fanned a lot... gave rise to the Sunday Funnies cartoon "Smoky Stover" of the 40's and 50's. The do bale and burn stover as boiler fuel at larger energy plants in the midwest but, once again, yard waste is a much dirtier fuel and even after it is dried it isn't worth much...

[leveled]

I take my leaves and put them in the closest wet spot, I also have been putting them in the chickens outside pen area and letting them crap all over them, in the spring ill clean it out and use it for fertilizer.

[MarkV]

I wish yard wastes were being used more efficiently. When I first moved to my very rural community a local business let the city dig two deep strips on some vacant property they owned. The city dumped all the collected yard waste there and several times a year would bring in a large loader to push the 2 year old compost out for the public to take free. I brought home many yards of great material in my small dump truck. Now the city pays a recycler to take the yard wastes, they transport it to him, who turns it into compost and sells it. Go figure.

MarkV

[yellowdogsvc]

I mix yard waste, wood chips, brush, stumps, dirt, etc, and then run the mulcher over it. Makes great dirt fill after awhile especially if you add to it and continue to turn it.