The city speaks: Street superintendent outlines rules for disposing yard waste
By Mike Winch
Street Superintendent
Within the municipal code for the city of Marshfield is an ordinance that deals with environmental pollution. The ordinance says, “No person shall sweep or deposit weeds, grass clippings, leaves, or materials from private premises upon any sidewalk, terrace, or other city property, which are likely to get into storm sewers and cause environmental pollution.”
To avoid this source of storm water pollution, there are little things you can do that will help a lot:
1. Mulching your lawn is not only healthy for your lawn but cuts the grass clippings into small pieces and redistributes them on the lawn and not on the sidewalk or streets. Some people like to bag the grass clippings when they mow and then compost the grass clippings at a home compost site or the free compost site by Advanced Disposal on Hume Avenue.
2. The same can be done with leaves. Leaves can be mulched, bagged, and/or raked and composted at home or taken to the compost site on Hume Avenue.
3. The city also offers yard waste hauling by a contractor two times a year in the spring and three times in the fall.
At the street division, we are responsible for mowing city-owned property that is located in the medians and terraces adjacent to streets and sidewalks.
We have purchased mowers with mulching blades and rear discharge mower decks. Also in the tight spots we do bag the grass occasionally, and when the grass clippings sometimes end up on the street, we have sent the street sweeper to clean up the grass up before it ends up in the storm sewer.
The intent of this article is to make people aware of the ordinance on environmental pollution and some things that can be done to avoid polluting our storm sewer system.
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